


































































* 





4 


* 





✓* 










/ 









/ 


% 










I 







• l 

' l' : 'l 

. 













H • 










. 






































. 






























































i 

4 































* 


























a 


THE FOETY DAYS 


AFTER 


OUE LOED’S EESUEEECTION. 


THE LAST DAY OF OUR LORD’S PASSION. 

BY THE REV. WM. HANNA, LL. D. 

12 mo, $1.25. 

“ Dr. Hanna’s new work, as a prose poem on * The Last Day 
of our Lord’s Passion,’ stands alone in the crowded ranks of our 
theological literature. It is a work of fine and reverent genius, 
and will gain him more fame than even his well-known and 
much-admired ‘ Life of Dr. Chalmers.’ ” — Edinburgh Witness. 

“ Dr. Hanna descends from the abstract pulpit altitude to draw 
direct teaching from the words of Scripture ; he loses no time in 
pictorial illustration of facts and ideas which are plainer in the 
first statement than any exposition can make them. In his 
hands Judas and Peter become human creatures, not lifted entirely 
out of our way by the greatness of the circumstances surround- 
ing them, nor moved by unprecedented impulses, but carried on 
— one to that denial of which he repented, the other to that be- 
trayal which remorse and horror and despair kept him from 
repenting of — by a recognisable current of human passions and 
devices.” — Blackwood's Magazine. 

“ The style of the volume, as was to be expected from the 
Biographer of Chalmers, is almost all that could be wished as a 
model of natural flexibility, elegance and strength, at once 
terse and scholarly, polished and powerful .” — Christian Spectator. 

“ Ho writer of the present day is better able than Dr. Hanna 
to connect with interest, and to elucidate the narratives of the 
Gospels. He has here chosen that portion of deepest interest — 
the few momentous days around which the whole spiritual history 
of the world revolves .” — News of the Churches. 


THE FORTY DAYS 


AFTER 

Our Lord’s Resurrection. 


BY THE 

REV. WILLIAM HANNA, LL. D., 

AUTHOR OF “THE LAST DAY OF OUR LORD’S PASSION.” 



NEW YORK: 

ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 
No. 530 BROADWAY. 

1864. 


By jugunaagtr 

APH 18 1929 

Army aad Navy Otrgfr 

Washington. T\ O 


EDWARD 0 JENKINS, 
Printer, 

20 North William Street. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

THE RESURRECTION, 21 

APPEARANCE TO MARY MAGDALENE, ... 45 

THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS, 68 

THE EVENING MEETING, 91 

THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS, . . . .115 

THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE, . . . .139 

PETER AND JOHN, 169 

a 

THE GREAT COMMISSION, 184 

THE ASCENSION, 229 

APPENDIX, 259 











































PREFACE. 


I have long liad the conviction that the 
results of that fuller and more exact inter- 
pretation of the books of the New Testa- 
ment to which biblical scholars have been 
conducted, might be made available for 
framing such a continuous and expanded 
narrative of the leading incidents in our 
Redeemer’s life as would be profitable for 
practical and devotional, rather than for doc- 
trinal or controversial purposes. It was 
chiefly to try whether I could succeed in 
realizing the conception I had formed of 
what such a narrative might be made, that 
the volume on the Last Day of Our Lord's 
Passion was published. The favourable 
reception which it met has induced me to 
issue a companion volume on the succeeding 
and closing period of our Lord’s life on earth. 
Should this meet with anything like equal 
favour, I will be encouraged to prosecute 

(Yii) 


Vlll 


PEEFAOE. 


the task of completing the narrative in a 
similar form. 

To one who previously had doubts of the 
historic truth of the entire Gospel narrative, 
a personal inspection of the localities in 
which the events are represented as having 
occurred, must have a peculiar interest and 
value. It was in such a state of mind, half 
inclined to believe that the whole story of 
the Gospel was legendary, that M. Kenan 
visited the Holy Land three years ago. He 
has told us the result. “All that history,” 
he says, “ which at a distance seemed to float 
in the clouds of an unreal world took in- 
stantly a body, a solidity, which astonished 
me. The striking accord between the texts 
and the places, the marvellous harmony of 
the evangelical picture with the country 
which served as its frame, were to me as a 
revelation. I had before my eyes a fifth gos- 
pel, mutilated but still legible, and ever af- 
terwards in the recitals of Matthew and 
Mark, instead of an abstract Being that one 
would say had never existed, I saw a won- 


PREFACE. 


IX 


derful human figure live and move.” In 
listening to this striking testimony as to the 
effect of his visit to the East, we have deep- 
ly to regret that with M. Kenan the move- 
ment from incredulity towards belief stopped 
at its first stage. 

Besides its use in cases like that of Kenan, 
in removing pre-existing doubts, a journey 
through Palestine is of the greatest service 
in giving a certain freshness and vividness 
to one’s conceptions of the incidents described 
by the Evangelists, which nothing else can 
impart. Its benefits in this respect it would 
be difficult to exaggerate. But if any one 
go to the Holy Land full of the expectation 
of gazing on spots, or limited localities, once 
hallowed by the Kedeemer’s presence, and 
closely linked with some great event in his 
history; or if he go, cherishing the idea, 
that a study of the topography will throw 
fresh light upon some of the obscurer por. 
tions of the Gospel record, he will be doom- 
ed, I apprehend, to disappointment. I had 
the strongest possible desire to plant my foot 
1 * 


X 


PEEFACE. 


upon some portion of tlie soil of Palestine, 
on which. I could be sure that Jesus once had 
stood. I searched diligently for such a place, 
but it was not to be found. Walking to and 
fro, between Jerusalem and Bethany, you 
have the feeling — one that no other walks 
in the world can raise — that He often tra- 
versed one or other of the roads leading out 
to the village. But when you ask where, 
along any one of them, is a spot of which 
you can be certain that Jesus once stood 
there, you cannot find it. The nearest ap- 
proach you can make to the identification of 
any such spot, is at the point where the 
lower road curves round the shoulder of 
Mount Olivet, the point from which' the first 
view of Jerusalem would be got by one en- 
tering the city by this route. It is here that 
Dr. Stanley supposes Jesus to have paused 
and beheld the city, and to have wept over 
it. There is every likelihood that his sup- 
position is correct ; and it was with his des- 
cription fresh in the memory, that more than 
once I visited the memorable spot. I found, 


PREFACE. 


XI 


however, that the best topographer of Jeru- 
salem and its neighbourhood, whom I had the 
fortune to meet there — one who had studied 
the subject for years — was strongly inclined 
to the belief that it was along the higher 
and not the lower road that the triumphal 
procession passed; and that it was on his 
reaching the summit of Mount Olivet, that 
the city burst upon the Saviour’s view. It 
did not alter my own conviction that Dr. 
Stanley was correct ; but it hindered, indeed 
destroyed, the impression which absolute cer- 
tainty would have produced. 

There is, indeed, one circle of limited dia- 
meter, I believe but one, that you can trace 
on the soil of Palestine, and be absolutely 
certain that Jesus once stood within its cir- 
cumference — that which you may draw 
round Jacob’s Well near Sychar. I had de- 
termined to tread that circle round and 
round ; to sit here and there and everywhere 
about, so as to gratify a long-cherished wish. 
How bitter the disappointment on reaching 
it to find no open space at the well-mouth ; 


Xll 


PREFACE. 


but, spread all round, the remains of an old 
building, over whose ruinous walls we had 
to scramble and slide down, through heaps 
of stones and rubbish, till through two or 
three small apertures we looked down into 
the undiscoverable well ! 

It would seem indeed that, Jacob’s Well 
excepted, there is not a definite locality in 
Palestine that you can certainly and inti- 
mately connect with the presence of Jesus 
Christ. The grotto shown at Bethlehem 
may have been the stable of the village inn, 
but who can now assure us of the fact ? It 
is impossible to determine the site of that 
house in Nazareth under whose roof, for 
thirty years, Jesus lived. Of Capernaum, 
the city in which most of his wonderful 
works were wrought, scarcely a vestige re- 
mains. Travelers and scholars are disputing 
which is Capernaum among various obscure 
heaps of ruins on the north-western shore of 
the Sea of Galilee. No one, I believe, can 
tell the exact place where any one of our 
Lord’s miracles was wrought, or any one of 


PREFACE. 


Xlll 


his parables was spoken. The topographical 
obscurity that hangs around the history of 
J esus, reaches its climax at Jerusalem. Beth- 
any is sure, but the house of Lazarus is a 
fable. The Mount of Olives remains, but it 
cannot have been where they show it, so 
near the city, that the real Gethsemane lay. 
You cannot err as to the ridge on which of 
old the Temple stood, but where were the 
courts around it, in which Jesus so often 
taught ; where the palace of the High Priest, 
the hall of Pilate, the ground on which the 
cross stood, the new sepulchre in which they 
laid his body ? Whenever you try to get at 
some fixed and limited locality, it eludes 
your search. All is obscurity ; either utterly 
unknown, or covered with a thickening cloud 
of controversy. May it not have been meant 
that the natural, but in this case too human 
curiosity that we cherish, should be baffled ? 
Is it not better that he should have passed 
away, leaving so little of minute local as- 
sociation connected with his presence in the 
midst of us ? Does it not seem more in ac- 


XIV 


PEEFACE. 


cordance with the dignity of his divine char- 
acter, that of all the lives that were ever lived 
on earth, his should be the one that it is 
least possible to degrade by rude familiari- 
ties of conception ; his the name which it is 
least possible to mix up with that supersti- 
tion which ever seeks an earthly shrine at 
which to offer its incense ? 

It is true that tradition has fixed on many 
holy places in Palestine, and that each year 
sends crowds of worshippers to these shrines ; 
but as the darkness of those ages in which 
these traditions arose is giving place to light, 
the faith of many in these holy places cannot 
stand against the gathering force of evidence. 
The time must come, however long it be of 
arriving, when what is doubtful and what 
is sure shall be clearly known ; and if then, 
still more than now, it shall appear that the 
most wonderful of all earthly lives has left 
the fewest visible marks of itself behind in 
recognisable localities, it will also, perhaps, 
be believed that this is so, not without a 
purpose, but that it should be manifest that 


PREFACE. 


XV 


the ties of Jesus of Nazareth were not with 
places, hut with persons ; the story of his 
life one easily and equally understood in all 
ages and in every land. 

It was while the sheets of this volume 
were passing through the press, that the Vie 
de Jesus came into the writer’s hands. I 
need not say with what lively interest I 
turned to that part of it in which the period 
of our Saviour’s life, of which this volume 
treats, should have been represented. I 
found an utter blank. “ For the historian,” 
says M. Renan, “ the life of Jesus terminates 
with his last breath. It would, perhaps, 
scarcely be fair to call this a verdict against 
evidence, as M. Renan has told us that in a 
future volume he will explain to us how the 
legend of the resurrection arose. We must 
be permitted, however, even in absence of 
such explanation, to express our strong con- 
viction of the unreasonableness of that pro- 
cedure which assumes that what are good 
and sufficient materials for history up to the 
death of Jesus, are utterly useless afterwards. 


XVI 


PEEFACE. 


Admitting for tlie moment tliat tlie resurrec- 
tion, as a miraculous event, did not and 
could not happen, the seeing and conversing 
with Jesus was surely a thing as much with 
in the power of human testimony to estab- 
lish at one time as at another. And if those 
witnesses are to be credited, as M. Benan 
admits they are, who tells us of seeing and 
hearing him before the crucifixion, why are 
the same witnesses to be discredited when 
they tell us of seeing and hearing him after 
that event ? If the mixture of miracle with 
recorded incident throws the later period out 
of the historian’s pale, should it not have 
done the same with the earlier period also % 
This, however, is not the place to enter 
upon any of those momentous topics which 
M. Eenan has brought up afresh for discus- 
sion. There are different modes in which 
his Life of Jesus may be met and answered. 
One is a full and critical exposure of all the 
arbitrary assumptions and denials, affirma- 
tions without proof, doubts without reasons, 
inconsistencies and contradictions, errors his- 


PREFACE. 


xvii 


torical and exegetical, which are to be met 
with throughout the volume. Renan’s own 
range of scholarship is so extensive, and he 
has derived his materials from so many re- 
sources, that we trust no incompetent hand 
will rashly undertake the critical dissection 
of his book. A simpler, more direct, and 
more effective method of dealing with this 
work, would be to expose its flagrant failure 
in what may be regarded as its capital de- 
sign and object; to eliminate all that is 
superhuman and divine from the character 
and life of Christ, and yet leave him a man 
of such pure, exalted, unrivalled virtue, as 
to be worthy of the unreserved and un- 
bounded love and reverence of mankind. 
Let the fancy sketch of Jesus of Nazareth, 
which M. Renan has presented to us, be 
stripped of that rich coloring which he has 
thrown around it, and it will appear as that 
of a man who at times showed himself to be 
ignorant, weak, prejudiced, extravagant, fan- 
atical ; who in his teaching advanced some- 
times what was foolish, sometimes what was 


XV111 


PREFACE. 


positively immoral ; who in his practice was 
often himself misled, and became at least an 
accomplice in misleading and deceiving 
others; it is such a man whom he holds 
forth to ns, and would have us venerate as 
the author of the Christian faith. Here in 
this latest assault upon the Divinity of 
Christ, we have it set before us what kind 
of human character is left to Him if his Son- 
ship to God be denied. It is a singular re- 
sult of this attempt to strip Christ of all 
Divine qualities and perfections, that it mars 
and mutilates his character even as a man. 
The two elements — the human, the Divine — 
are so inseparably interwoven, that you can- 
not take away the one and leave the other 
unimpaired. If Jesus be not one with the 
Father in the possession of Divine attributes, 
he can no longer be regarded as the type and 
model of a perfect humanity. A curious in- 
quiry thus suggests itself into the modifica- 
tions to which the humanity was subjected 
by its alliance with Divinity in the complex 
character of the Redeemer, and into the man- 


PREFACE. 


XIX 


ner in which, the natural and the super- 
natural were woven together in his earthly 
history. 

But without any controversial treatment, 
the evil which M. Kenan’s work is fitted to 
produce may he neutralized — by a simple 
recital of the Life of Jesus, so as to show 
that the blending of the natural with the 
miraculous, the human with the Divine, is 
essential to the coherence and consistency of 
the record; absolutely precluding such a 
conception of Christ’s character as that which 
M. Kenan has presented ; that the fabric of 
the Gospel history is so constructed that if 
you take out of it the Divinity of Jesus, the 
whole edifice falls into ruins. The writer 
ventures to hope that such a Life of Jesus as 
he meditates may at least partially serve this 
purpose, and be useful in promoting an in- 
telligent and devout faith in Jesus of Nazar- 
eth, the Son of Mary, as the Son of God, the 
Saviour of mankind. 

W. HANNA. 

' Edinburgh, 11 th Nov., 1863 . 




I 



We left Mary Magdalene and the other 
Mary keeping their lonely watch over against 
the sepulchre till the sun of Friday sets. At 
its setting, Saturday, the great Sabbath of 
the Passover, begins. Such a Sabbath nev- 
er dawned upon this world before or since. 
All things wear an outward look of quiet in 
Jerusalem. A great calm, a deeper than 
Sabbath stillness, has followed the stir and 
excitement of those strange scenes at Golgo- 
tha. Crowds of silent worshippers fill, as 
usual, the courts of the Temple ; and all 
goes on, at the hours of the morning and 
evening sacrifice, as it had done for hundreds 
of years gone by. But can those priests, 
who minister within the Holy Place, gaze 
without some strange misgivings upon the 
rent in the veil from top to bottom, which 

•Matt xxvii. C2-66: xxviii. 1-6. 

( 21 ) 


22 


THE RESURRECTION. 


yesterday tliey liad seen so strangely made, 
and winch they scarce had time imperfectly 
to repair ? Can they think without dismay 
of that rude uncovering of all the hidden 
mysteries of the most Holy Place, which 
they had witnessed ? Among the crowds 
of worshippers without, there are friends 
and followers of Jesus. They would have 
been here, had nothing happened to their 
Master the day before, and they are here 
now, for, by keeping away, they might draw 
suspicion upon themselves ; but what heart 
have they for the services of the Sanctuary ? 
They have just had all their brightest earth- 
ly hopes smitten to the dust ; and so pros- 
trate are they beneath the stroke, that they 
cannot even recall to memory, that but a few 
months before, Jesus had, more than once, 
distinctly told them that he must go up to 
Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the el- 
ders and chief priests, and be killed, and be 
raised again the third day. No writer of a 
fictitious story, no framer of a religious 
myth, had he previously put into Christ’s 


THE EESUEEECTXOH. 


23 


lips such distinct foretellings of his death 
and resurrection, would have attributed to 
his followers such an entire forgetfulness of 
these predictions, such an utter prostration 
of all faith and hope, as that which the 
Evangelists describe as coming upon all our 
Lord’s disciples immediately after his death, 
lasting till the most extraordinary means 
were taken to remove them, and yielding 
slowly even then. Yet, after all, is it not 
true to human nature, that upon the minds 
and hearts of those simple, rude, uncultiva- 
ted men and women, filled as they had been 
with other and quite different expectations, 
the shock of such a shameful death, coming 
in such a way upon their Master, was so sud- 
den and so stunning, that all power of form- 
ing a new conception of their Master’s char- 
acter, and taking up a new faith in him, was 
gone ; the power even of remembering what 
he had said about himself beforehand for the 
season paralysed? 

But love lives on, even where faith dies 
out, among those disconsolate and utterly 


24 


THE RESURRECTION. 


hopeless friends and followers of our Lord. 
While the two Marys had remained through- 
out the preceding day before the sepulchre, 
others of those Galilean women had hasten- 
ed to occupy the short space between the 
burial and the sunset, in beginning their 
preparations for the embalming of their Mas- 
ter’s body. And these, with the two Marys, 
are waiting now, not without impatience ; 
for their hearts, not in the Temple services, 
have gone where they have seen him laid, — 
till the sunset, the close of the Sabbath, en- 
ables them to have all the needed wrap- 
pings, and spices, and ointments prepared, 
so that when the third morning dawns they 
may go out to Golgotha, to finish there at leis- 
ure what Joseph and Mcodemus had more 
hurriedly and imperfectly attempted, before 
they laid Jesus in the sepulchre. 

But how, throughout this intervening Sab- 
bath, fares it with the chief priests and rul- 
ers ? Are they quite at ease ; content and 
happy ; satisfied with, if not glorying in, 
their success ? They have got rid of this 


THE RESURRECTION. 


25 


obnoxious man ; lie is dead and buried. 
What fear can there be of him now \ What 
risk or danger to them, or to their suprem- 
acy, can come out of his grave ? May they 
not bury all their apprehensions in that 
closed sepulchre \ No ; a ghastly fear comes 
in to mar the joy of a gratified revenge. 
They dread that dead man still; he rules 
their spirits from his sepulchre. They would 
not cross Herod’s threshold the day before, 
lest they should be defiled. They could not 
bear the thought that Jesus should hang 
suspended on the cross throughout the Sab- 
bath-day ; it would disturb, it would dese- 
crate the services of the Holy day, the Holy 
Place. But they scruple not to desecrate 
the Sabbath by their jealous fears ; by their 
secret councils ; by their plantings to pre- 
vent a future, dreaded danger. And so, no 
sooner is the Sabbath over, than they hasten 
to the Governor, saying to him : — “ Sir, we 
remember that that deceiver said, while he 
was yet alive, After three days I will rise 
again.” They had themselves heal'd him, at 
2 


Resurrection. 


26 


THE RESURRECTION. 


the very beginning of his ministry, say pub- 
licly: “ Destroy this temple, and in three 
days I will raise it again.” They had heard 
him at a later period say: “An evil and 
adulterous generation seeketh after a sign ; 
and there shall no sign be given to it, but 
the sign of the prophet Jonas : for as Jonas 
was three days and three nights in the 
whale’s belly, so shall the Bon of Man be 
three days and three nights in the heart of 
the earth.” Was it to these vague and gen- 
eral sayings of our Lord that the Eulers now 
referred ? It is more likely that they had in 
view some of those more recent and more ex- 
plicit declarations of Jesus to his own disci- 
ples, such as the one already quoted, or such 
as that other, and still more explicit one, 
when he took his disciples apart by the way, 
as they were going up to Jerusalem, and 
said to them, “ Behold, we go up to Jerusa- 
lem; and the Son of Man shall be be- 
trayed unto the chief priests, and unto the 
scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, 
and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to 


THE RESURRECTION. 


27 


mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: 
and the third day he shall rise again.” What 
more natural than that the betrayer himself, 
to whose act especial allusion was thus made, 
should, in some of his communications with 
the Rulers, have repeated to them those 
memorable words? They now remember, 
while the disciples themselves forget. They 
fear, while the disciples have ceased to hope. 
When first reported to them, they had 
mocked at the unmeaning words ; but now 
that so much of the prophecy has been ac- 
complished, they begin to dread lest somehow 
or other the remainder of it should also be 
fulfilled. As yet all was safe ; it was not till 
the third day that he was to rise again. 
During that Sabbath-day the body of the 
Crucified was secure enough in the sepul- 
chre ; the very sanctity of the day a suffi- 
cient guard against any attempt to invade 
the tomb. But instant means must be taken 
that thereafter there be no tampering with 
the place of burial. No .night-guard could 
they get so good as a company of Roman 


28 


THE RESURRECTION. 


soldiers whose iron rule of discipline im- 
posed death upon the sentinel who slept at 
his post. Such guard they could get sta- 
tioned at the sepulchre only under the Gov- 
ernor’s sanction. “ Command therefore,” they 
said to Pilate, “ that the sepulchre he made 
sure until the third day, lest his disciples 
come by night, and steal him away, and say 
unto the people, He is risen from the dead : 
so the last error shall be worse than the 
first.” Little heeding either the first or the 
last error, having no sympathy with their idle 
fears about the rifling of the sepulchre, in no 
good humour either with himself or with the 
Eulers, yet, since he had gone so far to please 
them, not caring to refuse their last request, 
Pilate complies. “Ye have a watch,” he 
says ; “ a detachment of my soldiers placed 
at your disposal during the feast, use it as 
you please ; go your way, and, with its help, 
make the sepulchre of that poor, innocent 
Nazarene, you got me to crucify, as sure as 
you can.” And they went their way. They 
passed a cord across the stone which filled 


THE RESURRECTION. 


29 


the entrance into the sepulchre, and fastened 
it at each end to the adjoining rock with the 
sealing clay, so that the stone could not he 
removed and replaced, however carefully, in 
its first position, without leaving behind a 
mark of the disturbance. And they placed 
the sentinels, with the strict command that 
they were to suffer no man in the darkness 
to meddle w r ith that sepulchre ; and thus, 
securely guarded, the dead body of the Re- 
deemer reposes. 

The darkness deepens round the sepulchre, 
the sentinels kindle their night-lamps, and 
pace* to and fro before it. The midnight 
hour has passed; it is yet dark. The day 
has but begun to daw T n, when those women, 
w r hose wakeful love sends them forth on their 
early errand, leave the Holy City to go out 
to Calvary to complete there the interrupted 
embalming. They are already near the spot, 
when a difficulty, not thought of till then, 
occurs to them. And they said among 
themselves, Who shall roll away the stone 
from the door of the sepulchre ? That stone 


30 


THE RESURRECTION. 


which they had seen two nights before close- 
ly fitted into its place, was too large, too 
firmly embedded in its place for their weak 
hands to move, and at this hour, and at that 
spot, what aid of stronger hands can they 
obtain ? Another difficulty there was ; but 
of it happily they were ignorant, or it might 
have stopped their movement altogether. 
Of that stealing of the stone, of that guard 
planned the preceding day before the sepul- 
chre, they had heard nothing, else they might 
have put to one another the further question, 
How, with such guard before it, shall we 
ever get access to the grave ? It is as they 
are communing with one another by the way, 
that the earth quakes, and the angel descends 
from heaven, and rolls the stone back from 
the door of the sepulchre, and, having done 
this service .for the embalmers, sits down 
upon it, waiting their approach. Was it 
then that the great event of that morning 
took place? Was it as the angel’s hand 
rolled back the stone, and opened the en- 
trance of the tomb, that the Great Redeemer 


THE RESURRECTION. 


31 


of mankind awoke, arose, and stepped forth 
from liis temporary rest among the dead? 
It is not said so. The keepers did not wit- 
ness the resurrection. They saw the angel, 
the light of his countenance, the snowy 
radiance of his raiment, and for fear of him 
they became as dead men. But they saw 
not the Lord himself come forth. The angel 
himself may not have witnessed the resur- 
rection. He did not say he had. He speaks 
of it as an event already past. It may not 
have been as a spectator or minister to his 
Lord, in the act of rising from the dead, that 
he was sent down from heaven. The Lord 
of life needed not that service which he came 
to render. Through that stone door he could 
have passed as easily as he passed afterwards 
through other doors which barred not his 
entrances nor his exits. Altogether secret, 
the exact time and manner of the event, 
unnoticed and unknown was that great rising 
from the dead. The clearest and amplest 
proof was afterwards given of the fact that, 
some time between sunset of the last and 


32 


THE RESURRECTION. 


sunrise of tlie first day of the week, tlie 
resurrection had taken place ; but it pleased 
not the Lord wko then arose to do so under 
tlie immediate eye or inspection of any hu- 
man witness. 

Alarmed by the quaking of the ground 
beneath their feet, bewildered by the strange 
light which is seen streaming forth from be- 
side the sepulchre, the women enter the gar- 
den, approach the sepulchre, gather courage 
as they see that the stone is already rolled 
away, but might have sunk again in terror 
as they looked at him who sat upon that 
stone, had he not prevented their fears by 
saying to them, in tones, let us believe, full 
of soothing power : “ Fear not ye : for I know 
that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified ” — 
‘ I know the errand that you come on. I 
know that it is love to the Crucified which 
brings you, thus early, to what was once his 
grave ; and I have tidings of him that such 
love as yours will delight to hear. True, 
all that labour of yours about these spices 
and ointments is lost; you will find here 




THE RESURRECTION. 33 

no body to embalm. But not lost tins 
visit to tbe sepulchre ; for to you first, among 
all Ms followers, have I to tell : “ He is not 
here : for be is risen, as be said. Come, see 
tbe place where tbe Lord lay ’ and be led 
them into tbe sepulchre. 

u Come, see tbe place where tbe Lord lay.” 
How little did tbe angel who first uttered 
these words, and beard tbe echo of them die 
away among tbe recesses of tbe rocky gar- 
den, — bow little, perhaps, did be think that 
tbe invitation which be thus gave to those 
few trembling women who stood before him, 
would be conveyed down through all after 
times, and be borne to tbe ears of millions 
of tbe followers of Jesus Christ. And yet 
it has been even so, and in tbe course of its 
long descent and wide circulation, it has 
reached even unto us. Let us listen to and 
obey it. Come, let us look at tbe place 
where tbe Lord once lay, and from which on 
that third morning be arose. 

We cannot indeed literally accept tbe an- 
gelic invitation, and go and look into tbe 
2 * 


34 


THE RESURRECTION. 


empty sepulchre. The hand of time, and in 
this instance the still rougher hands of the 
devotee and of the infidel, have wrought 
such changes in that sacred neighbourhood 
that the exact site of the holy sepulchre 
cannot be identified. But though we may 
not be able to plant our footsteps on the 
very ground that the trembling women oc- 
cupied, or follow them as, angel led, they 
passed into the deserted tomb, yet in thought 
we may still bend over the place where the 
Lord once lay. 

As we do so, let us reflect upon the proofs 
of the divine mission of the Redeemer af- 
forded by his resurrection from the grave. 
Evidence enough had been afforded by our 
Lord himself, during his lifetime, of his 
divine character and authority. The words 
he spake, the works he did, proclaimed him 
to be the Son of the Highest. But sufficient 
as it was to convince the candid, that evi- 
dence had not been sufficient to silence the 
cavillers. His words were misunderstood 
and misinterpreted ; his miracles, though not 


THE RESURRECTION. 


35 


denied, were attributed to Satanic agency. 
It was as a blasphemer that be was put to 
death. But his resurrection appears at least 
to have had this effect, it stopped the mouths 
of his adversaries. There might be a few 
among the more credulous of them who 
accepted the clumsy tal§ that the chief 
priests tried to circulate about his disciples 
coming by night and taking the body away. 
But loudly and publicly as, both in the 
heart of Jerusalem and elsewhere, the apos- 
tles proclaimed this fact in the presence of 
the Rulers themselves, it does not appear 
that its reality was ever openly challenged, 
or that any such attempt was made to ex- 
plain it away as had been made regarding 
other miracles wrought by the Saviour’s 
hands. If it failed to convince, it succeeded 
at least in silencing those who would, if they 
could, have dealt with it in a like manner. 

It had indeed the force of a double miracle. 
Barely, and by itself, the rising of Jesus 
from the dead most fully authenticated the 
claims he had put forth. Had the Son of 


36 


THE RESURRECTION. 


Mary not been all that he had declared him- 
self to be, never would such an exercise of 
the Divine power have been put forth on his 
behalf. But more than this, Christ had pub- 
licly perilled his reputation as the Christ of 
God, on the occurrence of this event. When 
challenged to give some sign in support of 
his pretensions, it was to his future resurrec- 
tion from the dead, and to it alone, that he 
appealed. Often, as we have seen, and that 
in terms incapable of misconstruction, had 
our Lord foretold his ‘resurrection. It car- 
ried thus along with it, a triple proof of the 
divinity of our Lord’s mission. It was the 
fulfilment of a prophecy, as well as the work- 
ing of a miracle ; that miracle wrought, and 
that prophecy fulfilled, in answer to a solemn 
and confident appeal made beforehand by 
Christ to this event as the crowning testi- 
mony to his Messiahship. 

But not yet have we exhausted the testi- 
mony which the resurrection of Jesus em- 
bodies. He spoke of that resurrection as the 
raising of himself by himself, “Destroy 


THE RESURRECTION. 


37 


this temple, and in three days I will raise it 
np. I lay down my life, that I may take it 
again. I have power to lay it down ; I have 
power to take it again.” An assumption by 
J esus Christ of a power proper to the Crea- 
tor alone ; a clothing of himself with the 
high prerogatives of the giver and the re- 
storer of life. His actual resurrection, did 
it not in the most solemn manner ratify that 
assumption, convincing us by an instance of 
the highest kind, that whatsoever the Fath- 
er doeth, the same doeth the Son likewise ? 

But further still — and it is this which at- 
taches such importance to this incident in 
the history of our Redeemer, and causes it 
to be spoken of in the New Testament 
Scriptures as standing in such close connex- 
ion with all our dearest hopes as to the life 
beyond the grave, — in the resurrection of the 
Saviour, the seal of the Divine acceptance 
and approval was put upon that great work 
of service and of sacrifice, of atonement and 
of obedience in our room and stead, which Je- 
sus finished on the cross. The expression 


38 


THE RESURRECTION. 


and embodiment of that acceptance and ap- 
proval in a visible act, an outward and pal- 
pable incident, gives an aid and a security 
to our faith in Christ for our acceptance with 
God, far beyond that which any bare an- 
nouncement in' words could possibly have 
conveyed. Can we wonder, then, at the 
prominence given, in the teachings and writ- 
ings of the apostles of our Lord, to an event 
so full of convincing evidence, so rich in 
spiritual instruction and comfort ? To be a 
witness to this great event was held — as the 
election of Matthias informs us — to be the 
special function of the apostolic office. It was 
this event that Peter referred at large in his 
discourse to the multitude on the day of 
Pentecost. “This Jesus hath God raised 
up, whereof we all are witnesses.” Ques- 
tioned, a short time afterwards, before the 
Sanhedrim, as to the earliest of the apostolic 
miracles, “ Be it known,” said Peter, “ unto 
you all, and to all the people of Israel, that 
by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, 
whom you crucified, whom God raised from 


THE RESURRECTION. 


39 


the dead, even by him doth this man stand 
before you whole.” When Paul addressed 
the men of Athens, this was the one super- 
natural incident to which, in the way of at- 
testation, he referred : “ God hath appointed 
a day, in the which he will judge the world 
by that man whom he hath ordained ; where- 
of he hath given assurance, in that he hath 
raised him from the dead.” I have but to 
refer to the 15th chapter of the 1st Epistle 
to the Corinthians, to remind you of the place 
and prominence given to the event by the 
great apostle of the Gentiles : “ If Christ be 
not risen, then is our preaching vain, and 
your faith is also vain.”* 

From the first, it was to that crowning 
miracle of Christianity that its teachers 
made appeal. And now once more, in our 
own times, it is by that event that we desire 
that the entire question of the supernatural- 
ism of our religion should Ipe decided ; for 
if that event be true, then any, then all oth- 
er miracles are at least credible, for where 


See Appendix A. 


40 


THE RESURRECTION. 


among them shall a greater than this he 
found % If that event he true, then upon it 
does the entire fabric of our Christian faith 
securely rest ; for if we believe that Jesus 
died and rose again, then are we prepared 
along with this, and as harmonizing with 
this, to believe all that the Scriptures have 
taught us of the glory of Christ’s person, as 
one with, and equal to the Father ; — all that 
they have taught us of the design of his life 
and death among us, as the Redeemer of our 
souls from death, — the giver, the infuser, the 
nourisher, the maturer of that eternal life 
which is for our souls in him. Let us then 
be devoutly grateful for it, that our faith in 
him — in knowledge of whom, in union with 
whom standeth our eternal life — has such a 
solid foundation of fact to rest upon, — a 
foundation so firmly imbedded among all 
those other foundations upon which our 
knowledge of the past reposes, that to un- 
settle, to overturn it, you must unsettle, 
must overturn them all. 

“ Come, see the place where the Lord lay,” 


THE EESUEEECTIOjST. 


41 


that you may contemplate him, the one and 
only instance which this world hath witness- 
ed of the last enemy, Death, being fairly 
met, — met in his own territory, triump hd 
over in his own domain, by the use of his 
own weapons. That grim, inexorable ty- 
rant, wealth has never bribed, tears have 
never softened, beauty has never moved 
as he made his unfaltering approach, and 
struck his unerring blow. To and fro, wide 
over the vast field of humanity, has that 
sheer, cold scythe been ever swaying, and 
generation after generation has it laid low in 
the dust. Two only out of the many mil- 
lions of our race — two in olden time were 
snatched away before the stroke of the de- 
stroyer came upon them, and passed away 
without tasting death. But the translation 
of Enoch and Elijah was no victory over 
death ; they never met, they never grappled 
with this foe; they were withdrawn from 
the battle-field before the day of conflict 
came. Some there were, too, in after times, 
who, subject for a season to the dominion of 


42 


THE RESURRECTION. 


death, were delivered from his sway ; hut 
neither was theirs the victory, for they had 
to return again, and how once more heneath 
the yoke of the great conqueror. The wid- 
ow’s son, the ruler’s daughter, and Lazarus 
whom Jesus loved, lie low as others in the 
caverns of the dead. One alone of human 
form ever grappled with that strong wrest- 
ler, Death, and cast him from him overcome. 
His way to conquest lay through brief sub- 
mission. Like others, he descended into the 
dark and dreary prison-house. The grave 
opened to receive him. He seemed to have 
passed away, as the multitudes who had 
gone before. But Death and the Grave 
never received such a visitant into their si- 
lent and vast domains. He approached the 
throne of the tyrant, to wrench the sceptre 
of empire from his hand. In bursting, as he 
did, the barriers of the grave, it was no 
mere respite that he obtained for himself, 
but a full and final victory. He bade adieu 
that morning to the sepulchre for ever. He 
left no trophy behind ; nothing of his in the 


THE KE3UKRECTI0X. 


43 


hands of death; nothing but that empty 
sepulchre to tell that he had once, and for a 
short season, been under the hold of the de- 
stroyer. Even had this been a solitary con- 
quest, though the sepulchre of Jesus were 
to remain for ever as the only one from 
which the tenant came forth alive, to return 
to it no more, — still would we draw near to 
muse upon this one triumph of humanity 
over the last enemy. 

But we have all a nearer, a more special 
interest in this deserted tomb of Jesus Christ. 
His was no solitary, isolated victory over the 
grave. For us he died, and for us he rose 
again. Firm and fast as the grave now seems 
to hold the buried generations of our race, 
it is now doomed, as a fruit of Christ’s resur- 
rection, to relax its grasp, and yield them up 
again. Empty as was Joseph’s sepulchre 
when the angel stood before it and invited 
the women to enter, so empty shall one day 
be every grave of earth, when another angel 
shall sound his trumpet, and it shall ring 
through all the regions of the dead, and stir 


44 


THE EESUEEECTION. 


all to life again. Blessed was that morning 
which dawned upon the empty tomb at Cal- 
vary, but more blessed to us shall that other 
morning be, which shall dawn upon all the 
emptied graves of earth, if only now we live 
in Christ ; if at death we sleep in Jesus ; if at 
that resurrection we be numbered with those 
who shall share the resurrection of the just. 


II. 



In relating the incidents of the resurrec- 
tion, St. Matthew tells us that it was Mary 
Magdalene and the other Mary, who, as the 
first day of the week began to dawn, went 
out to the sepulchre. St. Mark mentions 
Salome as having accompanied them. St. 
Luke introduces the additional name of 
Joanna. St. John speaks of Mary Magda- 
lene, and of her only. On the supposition 
that a number of those women who came 
with Jesus from Galilee had agreed to com- 
plete as early as possible the embalming of 
his body, and that they had either started 
together from the city, or, being in different 
parts of it the night before, had fixed to 
meet at early dawn at the sepulchre, we can 
readily enough understand that each of the 
four independent narrators might name one 

* John xx. 1*18. 

( 45 ) 


46 


APPEARANCE TO 


or more of them without specifying the 
others. Looking, however, a little more 
closely into the four separate accounts, we 
notice that, according to Matthew, the women 
on their arrival found the stone removed 
from the entrance of the sepulchre, and an 
angel sitting upon it, who invited them to 
enter and look at the place where the Lord 
had lain. Mark, making no allusion to any 
vision of an angel without, says that they 
passed into the sepulchre, and, on entering, 
saw “ a young man sitting at the right side, 
clothed in a long white garment,” who ad- 
dressed to them nearly the same words which 
Matthew puts into the mouth of the angel 
seen sitting upon the stone. Luke tells us 
that, finding the stone rolled away, they en- 
tered in and found the sepulchre empty, and 
as they stood perplexed at the discovery, 
“ behold, two men stood by them in shining 
garments,” and spoke to them in terms and 
in a tone differing considerably from that at- 
tributed to the single angel by the first two 
evangelists. It appears again, from the nar- 


MARY MAGDALENE. 


47 


rative of John, that Mary Magdalene had 
seen no angel, had heard at least no an- 
nouncement that the Lord was actually 
alive, when she hurried off from the sepul- 
chre in search of Peter and John. What 
are we to make of these discrepancies ? Was 
it sometimes one and sometimes two angels 
that appeared ; were some eyes opened and 
some eyes shut to the angelic visions? Was 
it one visit, or two, or more, by the same or 
different groups of women, which were paid 
to the sepulchre? Various attempts to an- 
swer such questions have been made ; various 
suppositions have been framed, the adoption 
of which, it has been thought, would relieve 
the different accounts from conflicting with 
one another; various modes of interlacing 
them, so as to form out of them a continu- 
ous and consistent narrative, have been pre- 
sented. If it cannot be said that they have 
all absolutely failed, it must be said that not 
one of them is entirely satisfactoiy. We 
cannot doubt that if all the minor and con- 
necting links were in our hands, we should 


48 


APPEAEANCE TO 


be able to explain what now seems to be 
obscure, to harmonize what now seems to be 
conflicting ; but in the absence of such knowl- 
edge, we must be content to take what each 
writer tells us, and regard it as the broken 
fragment of a whole, all the parts of which 
are not in our hands, so that we can put 
them connectedly together. But is not this 
fragmentary character of each of these four 
separate accounts just what we might have 
expected, considering the time and manner 
of the events narrated, — the obscure light, 
the women coming, it may have been singly, 
or in different groups by different routes, the 
surprise, the terror, the running in and out, 
to and from the city — all this within the 
compass of an hour or two ? Which one of 
the spectators or actors in these busy and 
broken movements, if asked afterwards to 
detail what occurred, but might have given 
an account of it differing from that of all the 
others ? And if any two of these indepen- 
dent sources of information were applied to 
or made use of, how readily might apparent 


MARY MAGDALENE. 


49 


contradictions emerge upon tlie face of the 
narratives that were afterwards preserved. 
We do not know from what particular 
sources Matthew, Mark, and Luke derived 
their information. This special interest, 
however, attaches to the narrative of John, — 
it is partly that of an eye-witness, and part- 
ly drawn, we cannot doubt, from what was 
told him by Mary Magdalene herself. Over- 
looking the part taken by all the other 
women, John confines himself exclusively to 
her. Even as our Lord himself singled her 
out from among the women who had minis- 
tered to him, to make to her his first appear- 
ance after his resurrection, so does the be- 
loved disciple speak of her alone while he 
details to us the incidents of that wonderful 
manifestation. 

We feel as if a great injustice had been 
done to Mary Magdalene, in identifying her 
with the woman who was a sinner, who 
anointed the Lord’s feet with ointment, and 
wiped them with the hairs of her head. 
The name of that woman is not mentioned 

Resurrection. 3 


50 


APPEAKANCE TO 


in the record of tlie incident in which she 
took so prominent a part. The incident oc- 
curred not in Magdala hut at Naim It was 
after Christ had left Nam that the first men- 
tion of this Mary meets us in the gospel 
narrative : “And it came to pass afterward, 
that he went throughout every city and vil- 
lage, preaching and showing the glad tidings 
of the kingdom of God; and the twelve 
were with him, and certain women, which 
had been healed of evil spirits and infirmi- 
ties, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom 
went seven devils, and Joanna the wife of 
Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and 
many others which ministered unto him of 
their substance.” Named thus along with 
one whose husband held an important office 
in Herod’s household, named as one of those 
who ministered to our Lord of their sub- 
stance, Mary Magdalene does not appear to 
have been a woman of a low or poor condi- 
tion. Neither have we any right to ground 
upon the fact that seven devils had been 
cast out of her, the conclusion that she had 


MARY MAGDALENE. 


51 


been a woman of depraved or dissolute hab- 
its. Satanic possession carried then no more 
evidence along with it of previous immoral- 
ity, than insanity would do now among our- 
selves. 

But whoever, whatever this Mary was, 
she was, as we have already seen, one of the 
latest at the sepulchre on the evening of the 
burial, and now she is one of the earliest at 
that sepulchre on the morning of the resur- 
rection. Perhaps, more eager than the rest, 
she had hurried on before, and entered the 
garden alone. A quick glance, that waited 
not to catch even the sight of the angel’s 
form, had shown her that the entrance was 
open, and the sepulchre empty. Over- 
whelmed with sorrow at the sight ; waiting 
not to hear the angel’s intimation that He 
had risen ; leaping at once to the conclusion 
that hostile hands had rifled the sacred 
tomb, her troubled fancy picturing to her 
the indignities to which that form, beloved 
even in its lifelessness, might have been sub- 
jected, — Mary hurries back lo the city. 


52 


APPEARANCE TO 


She seeks the house to which John had car- 
ried the mother of our Lord. She finds 
there both John and that other apostle, 
whom a strange attraction has drawn now 
to John’s side. She has but breath enough 
to say, u They have taken away the Lord, 
and we know not where they have laid 
him.” Her eagerness of alarm passes, by 
sympathy, into the hearts of the two apos- 
tles. They arise to run out together to the 
sepulchre. John’s lighter footstep, quicken- 
ed by his more ardent, more unburdened 
love, carries him soonest to the spot ; but, at 
the entrance, his deep and reverential spirit 
holds him back in awe. He stops, and bends, 
and looks into the grave. Peter, of slower 
step, and still labouring, it may have been, 
under the burden of self-reproach, is behind 
John in the race ; but, bolder or more impet- 
uous, he stops not at the door, but, passing 
John, goes at once into the sepulchre.- He 
draws his brother apostle after him, the one 
never dreaming of the influence he thus 
exerts, the other as little thinking of the in- 


MAEY MAGDALENE. 


53 


Alienee lie obeys. Botli are now within, 
and have leisure to look round upon the 
place. There the linen clothes are lying, 
with which Joseph and Nicodemus had 
swathed the body, and there, not loosely 
Aung upon them in a disordered heap, but 
carefully folded up in a place by itself, lies 
that napkin which Mary herself may have 
helped to bind around the thorn-marked 
brow. Who had arranged them thus? 
Was it the hand of the great Sleeper him- 
self, on his awakening within the tomb? or 
was it some angel’s hand that took the death 
garments, as they dropped from around the 
risen one, and thus disposed them? Who- 
ever did it, there had been no haste ; all had 
been done calmly, collectedly. Neither 
earthly friends nor earthly foes had done 
it: the one would not have stripped the 
garments from the body ; the other would 
have been at no pains so carefully to arrange 
and deposit them. Peter, as he looks, is 
amazed, but his amazement shapes itself into 
no connected thought ; he departs wondering 


54 


APPEARANCE TO 


in himself at that which had come to pass. 
John’s quieter and deeper reflection suggests 
at once the idea that what has taken place 
is not a removal, but a reanimation of the 
body. An incipient faith in the resurrec- 
tion forms within his breast ; a faith ground- 
ed, not as it might have been, and should 
have been, on what he had already read or 
heard — for as yet neither he nor any of the 
apostles knew from the Scripture, nor be- 
lieved from Christ’s own word, that he must 
rise again from the dead, — but grounded 
simply on what he saw, and especially upon 
the singular condition which the interior of 
the sepulchre displayed. That rising faith, 
John kept to himself ; he never boasted that 
he was the first of all the Twelve to believe 
in the resurrection. Perhaps, his first pub- 
lic mention of the fact was when, so many 
years afterwards, he sat down to write that 
Gospel which bears his name. 

The brief inspection of the empty sepulchre 
over— there being nothing more to see or learn 
— John and Peter return silent and sad to 


MARY MAGDALENE. 


55 


their own home. Maiy Magdalene had fol- 
lowed them, as best she could, in the running 
out to the sepulchre ; but she does not join 
them in their return. Two evenings before 
(when all but she and the other Mary had 
left the tomb into which she had seen the 
body borne for burial), she had clung to it 
to the last, and this morning she clings to it 
still. The Master whom she had lost, had 
rendered her the greatest of services; had 
been to her the kindest and best of friends. 
Her grateful love had clung to him while 
living ; and now this love, living in her sor- 
row, makes her cling, even when John has 
left it, to the spot where in death he had re- 
posed. Mary Magdalene, standing alone 
weeping thus before the empty sepulchre, 
presents herself to our eye as the saddest 
and most inconsolable of all the mourners 
for the Crucified. As she weeps, she stoops 
to take another look into the deserted place. 
She sees a sight that might well have di- 
verted her from her grief— two angels sit- 
ting, the one at the head, the other at the 


56 


APPEARANCE TO 


feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. 
They say to her, “Woman, why weepest 
thou ?” Did you ever read of a more ab- 
sorbing grief than that she, who was ad- 
dressed thus by angels, should have no sur- 
prise, no astonishment to spare ; but, as if 
unheeding who they were that spoke to her, 
should, out of the depths of her engrossing 
sorrow, only be able to repeat what she had 
said to Peter and J ohn, varying the phrase 
a little — claiming a closer property in the 
departed— “ Because they have taken away 
my Lord , and I know not where they have 
laid him.” And she turns away, even from 
an interview with angels, from converse 
with those who may have had as their pur- 
pose in putting to her that question, to tell 
her about her risen Lord. She turns away 
even from them, to weep out, without fur- 
ther interruption, her most bitter grief. 

But now, from other lips, the same ques- 
tion, “Woman, why weepest thou?” salutes 
her ear. She sees, but scarcely notices, the 
person who thus speaks to her. He is not 


MARY MAGDALENE. 


57 


directly before her, and she cares not to turn, 
or make any minute scrutiny of his person. 
Even had she done so, seeing him through the 
veil of dropping tears, she might have failed 
to recognize him. She cares as little, in fact, 
about who this speaker is, as she had cared 
about who those angels were. Taking him 
to be one who did not need to be told why 
she wept, who must know all about , what 
had happened — the gardener of the place — 
she says to him in the simplest, most artless 
way, “Sir, if thou have borne him hence, 
tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will 
take him away.” She is willing even to be- 
lieve that it was with no unkindly purpose 
he had been removed. Only let her know 
where he is; and, all forgetful how unfit 
her weak hands were for such a task, she 
says, — I will take him away. 4 If it . be an 
offence that he lies here in this rich man’s 
tomb, so near the holy city* I will bear him 
away to some remoter burial-place, where he 
may lie in peace, and where I may go and 
weep at will over his grave.’ 

3 * 


58 


APPEARANCE TO 


Jesus saith unto her, “Mary'' The old 
familiar voice ! It can he only He who 
names her so. Instantly — fully — the reve- 
lation of his living presence hursts upon her. 
She turns, and forgetting all about the new 
strange circumstances in which she sees him, 
as if the former days of their familiar inter- 
course had returned, — she says, “ Rabboni !” 
and is about to clasp him to her arms. Je- 
sus stops the movement. u Touch me not,” 
he says, “ for I am not yet ascended to my 
Father ; but go to my brethren, and say unto 
them, I ascend unto my Father, and your 
Father, and to my God, and your God.” 
This check upon the ardour of Mary’s affec- 
tionate approach in the first moments of re- 
cognition, we can only understand reflect- 
ing upon the object of our Lord’s sojourn 
upon the earth for the forty days after his 
resurrection. 

There is a mystery which hangs around this 
singular period in the life of our Redeemer. 
Why did he tarry so long upon the earth, 
when his work appeared to have been fin- 


MARY MAGDALENE. 


59 


ished ? What peculiar service did that 
keeping empty so long his seat at his Fath- 
er’s right hand render to his church and peo- 
ple ? During the first eight days, on the first 
and last of which alone he showed himself 
in Jerusalem ; was he treading unseen the 
streets of the holy city, or haunting the 
household of the loved family of Bethany ? 
Their midnight hours ; did they see him once 
again amid the dark shadows of Gethsema- 
ne, praying now, not that the cup might he 
taken from him, hut that the fruits of his 
hygone passion might he gathered in ? The 
Sahhaths of these days ; did they see him 
entering again the Temple, passing behind 
the rent veil into the Holy of Holies, 
quenching with his unseen hand, and that 
for ever, the fire that had burned above the 
mercy-seat? During the weeks which fol- 
lowed, was he wandering an unseen specta- 
tor over the scenes of his earthly ministry ; 
revisiting Nazareth, re-entering Capernaum, 
where most of his mighty works had been 
done, looking in with kindly eye upon that 


60 


APPEARANCE TO 


nobleman’s family, all of whom had be- 
lieved in him ; going out to Cana, casting a 
passing glance at the dwelling in which the 
first of his miracles had been performed; 
lingering for a moment by the gate of the 
little city of Nain, blessing once more, as he 
passed, the widow and her recovered child ? 

It is an idle task, perhaps, for fancy to 
picture where or how those forty days were 
spent. But it is not an unprofitable ques- 
tion for us to put to ourselves, what ends 
could his lingering so long on earth have 
served? It cannot be supposed that the 
mere object of affording proof enough that 
he was still alive, would have detained him 
here so long. That could have been done in 
two days as well as forty. Besides, had 
that been the main object of his delay, why 
did he not appear oftener in a more open 
and public manner than he did ? Neither 
can it be imagined, that it was for the pur- 
pose of continued and enlarged intercourse 
with his disciples. The fewness and short- 
ness of the interviews with them preclude 


MARY MAGDALENE. 


61 


that belief. He was seen by them but ten 
times in all ;* five of those appearances oc- 
curring on the day of his resurrection ; and 
four of them, those to Mary, to Peter, to 
James, to the two disciples, having more of 
a private than of a public character. Out of 
the forty days there were but six on which 
he held intercourse with any human being, 
and in those six days he did not give 
more than as many hours to fellowship with 
those to whom he showed himself. How 
brief, too, generally, and abrupt the meet- 
ings that made up the hours which were so 
employed ! In the twilight of the garden ; 
in the dim-lighted upper chamber ; in the 
grey dawn of the lake side, he appears, 
speaks but a few sentences, and vanishes as 
mysteriously as he had appeared. All be- 
tokens a studied effort to stand aloof, to 
shun all close, prolonged, familiar inter- 
course. What impression was all this stu- 
died distance and reserve fitted to make up- 
on the minds of his disciples ? Put your- 


See Appendix B. 


62 


APPEARANCE TO 


selves into tlieir exact position at tliis time ; 
remember that not one of them before his 
death had risen to any thought or belief in his 
divinity ; that from all their earlier earthly 
notions of him they had to be weaned ; that 
after days and years of the easiest compan- 
ionship with him, they had to be raised to 
the belief that it was the very Lord of heav- 
en and earth with whom they had been 
holding converse ; yet, that belief was to be 
so formed within them, as not to militate 
against the idea of his true and proper hu- 
manity. See, then, what an important part 
in the execution of this needful, but most 
difficult task, must have been fulfilled by 
his mode of dealing with them during the 
forty days. 

For, let us only conceive what should 
have happened, if one or other of the two 
alternatives had been realized; if at once, 
after a few interviews, sufficient simply to do 
away with all doubt as to his resurrection, 
Jesus had passed up into the heavens, never 
to be seen again on earth; let us imagine 


MARY MAGDALENE. 


63 


that the descent of the Spirit had immedi- 
ately thereon ensued ; that the day of Pen- 
tecost had followed immediately on the day 
of the resurrection; that the eyes of the 
apostles had thus at once and fully been en- 
lightened, and the great truth of their Mas- 
ter’s Godhead had been flashed upon their 
minds ; the danger undoubtedly would have 
been that, seen in the blaze of that new 
glory, shining thus around his person, the 
man Christ Jesus had been lost, the human- 
ity swallowed up in the divinity ; nor would 
it have been so easy to persuade those men 
that, ascended up on high, seated at the 
right hand of the Father, he was the same 
Jesus still — a brother to them as truly as 
when he lived among them, equally alive to 
all human sympathies as when he walked with 
them by the way, or sat down with them in 
the upper chamber. 

Take, again, the other alternative; that 
after his resurrection, Christ had immedi- 
ately resumed and continued — even let us 
say for no longer a time than these forty 


64 


APPEAEANCE TO 


days — the exact kind of life that he had led 
before, returning to all his old haunts and 
occupations; spending a day or two with 
Lazarus and his sister at Bethany ; travelling 
up through Samaria, and sitting wearied by 
the well’s mouth, as before ; living in Peter’s 
wife’s sister’s house, dining with Pharisees; 
crossing the Lake in the fishing-boat ; com- 
panying with multitudes on mountain-sides ; 
living and acting outwardly in every respect 
as he had done before — would not such a 
return on his part to all the old familiarities 
of his former intercourse, have had a ten- 
dency to check the rising faith in his divin- 
ity; to tie his disciples down again to a 
knowing of him only after the flesh ; to give" 
to the humanity of the Lord such bulk and 
prominence as to make it in their eyes over- 
shadow the divinity ? Can you conceive a 
treatment more nicely fitted to the spiritual 
condition, to the spiritual wants of those 
men at that time, than the very one which 
the Lord adopted and carried out — so well 
fitted as it w T as, gradually, gently, without 


MAEY MAGDALENE. 


65 


violence (as is ever the mode of his acting 
in all the provinces of his spiritual empire), 
to lead those disciples on from their first 
misty, imperfect, unWorthy ideas of his per- 
son, character, and work, on and up to clearer, 
purer, loftier conceptions of Him \ In what 
better way could a faith in their Master’s di- 
vinity have been super-induced upon their 
former faith in him as a man, a friend, a 
brother, so that the two might blend to- 
gether without damage done to either by 
the union ; their knowledge of him as hu- 
man, not interfering with their trust in him 
as divine ; their faith in him as God, not 
weakening their attachment to him as man ? 

With this key in our hand — a key which 
unlocks much of the mystery of our Lord’s 
conduct throughout those forty days— let us 
return to Mary in the garden. She sees 
Jesus alive once more before her. She hears 
him as of old call her by her name. He is 
hers, she thinks again ; hers, as he had been 
before ; hers, not to be torn from her again. 
All the warmth of those former days of 


66 


APPEARANCE TO 


familiar friendship filling her glad heart, she 
offers him not the homage of a higher wor- 
ship ; but, addressing him as he did her, 
“ Kabboni,” she says — my own, my old, my 
well-loved Master ! She makes some, gesture 
as of embracing him. Gently, but firmly, 
our Lord repels the too warm, too human, 
too familiar approach. “Touch me not, 
Mary.” ‘ You think of me as given back to 
be to you the same exactly that I was before. 
You are mistaken; our relationship is 
changed ; our method of intercourse must be 
altered ; you must learn to think of me, and 
to act towards me, differently from what you 
ever did before ; I am here, but it is only for 
a short season ; I am on earth, but I am now 
on the way to my Father ; my home is no 
longer with you and the others here below, 
it is there with my Father up in heaven ; still 
shall I feel to you, and all the others, as 
tenderly as I ever felt, not ashamed even to 
call them still my brethren. Touch me not, 
then, Mary ; stop not to lavish on me an af- 
fection that has in it too much of the human, 


MARY MAGDALENE. 


67 


too little of tlie divine; but go to my 
brethren, and say unto them, I ascend to my 
Father, and to your Father, and to my God, 
and your God ; my Father and my God in a 
sense in which he is not and cannot be yours ; 
but your Father and your God in a sense in 
which he could not diave been yours had I 
not died and risen, and been on my way now 
to sit down with Him on the throne of glory 
in the heavens.’ 


III. 


Ifo §0MW«tJ U 

It was towards evening ; tlie day was far 
spent when tlie two disciples reached Em- 
mans ; yet there was time enough for them, 
after they had dined, to return by day-light 
to Jerusalem (a distance of about seven miles, 
a two or three hours’ walk) and to be pre- 
sent at that evening meeting, in the midst 
of which Jesus was seen by them once more. 
It must have been between mid-day and sun- 
set that the journey to Emmaus was taken. 
Of the two travellers, the name of one 
only has been preserved ; that of Cleopas, 
generally believed to have been a near rela- 
tion of Christ — the husband of the Virgin 
Mary’s sister. It was not, however, the close- 
ness of the relationship to Jesus which won 
for him the privilege of that strange conver- 
sation by the way. Had nearness of rela- 


tes) 


Luke xxiv. 13-33. 


THE JOUKXEY TO EMMAUS. 


69 


tionship had an ything to do with the matter, 
there was one surely to whom, above all 
others, we might have expected that he 
would appear on the day of his resurrection. 
Yet neither on that day, nor on any of the 
forty days he spent on earth thereafter, does 
Jesus seem to have made any special mani- 
festation of himself to his mother, or indeed 
to have taken any individual notice of her 
whatever. Her name does not once occur in 
the record of this period of our Redeemer’s 
life. It looks as if with that kindly,* son- 
like notice of her from the cross, Jesus had 
dropped the recognition of the earthly rela- 
tionship altogether, as one not suitable to be 
carried intb that kingdom to whose throne 
he was about to ascend. 

And as it was nothing in their outward 
relationship to Jesus, so neither was" it any- 
thing in the personal character, position, or 
services of these two men which drew down 
upon them this great favour from the Lord. 

They had occupied no prominent place 
beside the Saviour in the course of his min- 


70 


THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 


istry. They had exhibited do peculiar 
strength of attachment to him, or to his 
cause. Had Peter and James and John 
been the travellers, it would not have been 
so remarkable that he should have given 
them so many of the hours of that first day 
of his resurrection life ; more hours, in fact, 
than he ever gave to any two disciples be- 
sides ; nay, so far as we can measure them, 
more hours than he gave to any other 
interview of that period, — perhaps as many 
as were spent in all the other interviews to- 
gether, for generally they were very brief. 
What was there in these two men to entitle 
them to such a distinction ? They were not 
apostles, nor were they of any *great note 
among the seventy. Our Lord’s first words 
to them may perhaps help us to understand 
why it was that he joined himself to them. 
He had been seen walking beside them, so 
close as to overhear somewhat of their con- 
versation. But they are so intent upon the 
topic that engrosses them, that they notice 
not that a stranger has overtaken them, and 


THE JOUKNEY TO EMMAUS. 


71 


been in part a listener to their discourse. 
At last, in manner the easiest and most nat- 
ural, least calculated to give offence, expres- 
sive at once of interest and sympathy, Jesus 
breaks in upon their discourse with the in- 
quiry, “What manner of communications 
are these that ye have to one another, as ye 
walk and are sad ?” That sadness, who can 
tell what power it had in drawing the Man 
of sorrows to their side ? It was to Mary, 
weeping in her lonely grief ; to Peter, 
drowmed in tears of penitence, — that he had 
already appeared. And now it was to these 
two disciples in their sorrow that he joins 
himself : so early did the risen Saviour as- 
sume the gracious office of comforting those . 
who mourn, of binding up the broken heart. 
But in Mary, Peter, and these two disciples, 
three different varieties of human grief were 
dealt with. Mary’s was the grief of a grate- 
ful and affectionate heart, mourning the loss 
of one beloved ; Peter’s was the grief of a 
spirit smitten with the sense of a great of- 
fence committed ; the grief of the two disci- 


72 


THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 


pies was tliat of men disappointed, per- 
plexed, thrown into despondency and unbe- 
lief. It is especially noticed that it was 
while they communed together, and reasoned 
with one another, that Jesus drew near to 
them. There was much about which they 
well might differ and dispute. The yield- 
ing of their Master to the power of his ene- 
mies, and his shameful crucifixion two days 
before,— how could they reconcile with his 
undoubted pretensions and power, as a 
prophet so mighty in words and deeds? 
This one, that other saying of his, pointing 
to a future, never now, as they fancied, to be 
realized, what could they make of them? 

* Had Jesus himself been disappointed, de- 
ceived; had he imagined that the people 
would rise on his behalf, and prevent his cru- 
cifixion? That might have been, had he 
not so often shown that he knew all that 
was passing in men’s hearts. Could he, then, 
have been ignorant how the multitude of 
Jerusalem would feel and act ? There was 
truth, too, in what so many of them had 


THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 


73 


flung reproachfully in his teeth, as he hung 
upon the cross : He had saved others, why 
did he not save himself? What a confused 
heap of difficulties must have risen up be- 
fore these two men’s eyes as they reasoned 
by the way ! And then besides, there was 
what they had just heard before they left 
the city, — the report of some women that 
they had gone out, and found the sepulchre 
empty, and had seen angels, who told 
them that he was alive. They, indeed, 
might easily have been deceived ; but Peter 
and John had also gone out. It is true they 
had seen no angels, nor had any one, that 
they had heard of, seen the Lord himself. 
But the sepulchre had been found empty. 
The women were right so far ; were they 
right also in what they said about the an- 
gel’s message ? Could Jesus actually be 
alive again ? We wonder that these two 
men could have left the city at the time 
they did; we wonder at this perhaps the 
more because we know that, had they but 
waited an hour or two longer, they would 


74 


THE JOUEXEY TO EMM AITS. 


have had all their doubts resolved. It is 
clear enough, however, that neither of them 
had any faith in the resurrection; and as 
clear that they were dissatisfied with then- 
unbelief — altogether puzzled and perplexed. 
Ignorant, they needed to be taught ; deeply 
prejudiced, they needed to have their preju- 
dices removed. For hours and hours, for 
days and days, they might have remained 
together without clearing up the difficulties 
that beset them. But now, in pity and in 
love, the great Enlightener himself appears 
— appears in the garb of a stranger who 
joins them by the way. They do not at 
first, they do not all through the earnest 
conversation which follows, recognise him. 

In reading the accounts of all the differ- 
ent appearances of Christ after his resurrec- 
tion, the conviction seems forced upon us, 
that some alteration had taken place in the 
aspect of our Saviour, enough to create a 
momentary hesitation in recognising him, 
yet not enough after a close inspection, to 
leave any doubt as to his identity. In the 


THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 


75 


garden, Mary Magdalene was so absorbed in 
her sorrow, so utterly unprepared to meet 
the living Master — she looked so indirectly, 
with such a heedless glance at the stranger, 
whom she took to be the gardener — that we 
do not wonder at her failing to see at first 
who he was. So soon, however, as her 
name was uttered, and she turned and fixed 
that steadier look upon the speaker, the re- 
cognition was complete. To the women by 
the way, to whom next he showed himself, 
his very salutation revealed him, and left 
them no room for doubting that it was he. 
They held him by the feet, too, for a mo- 
ment or two, as they worshipped, and got the 
evidence of touch as well as sight to assure 
them of his bodily presence. That evening, 
in the upper chamber, the disciples were as- 
sembled. They could not be taken by sur- 
prise. They were prepared by the reports 
of Mary Magdalene, of the women, of Pe- 
ter, of the two disciples from Emmaus, to 
believe that he was alive ; yet when Jesus 
stood in the midst of them, they supposed 


76 


THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 


that they had seen a spirit; so troubled 
were they at the sight, so incredulous 
were they even as they looked at him, that he 
had to say to them, u Why are ye troubled, 
and why do thoughts arise in your heart ? 
Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I 
myself ; handle me, and see, for a spirit hath 
not flesh and bones as ye see me have and 
still further, to remove all doubt, he asked 
that some meat should be presented, and he 
took the piece of broiled fish and the honey- 
comb, and did eat them in their presence. 
It may have been the sudden apparition of 
Christ in the midst of them, while the doors 
of the chamber remained unopened, which, 
in part, begot the belief that it was a spirit 
that stood before them ; but that there was 
something too in the changed appearance of 
their Master, which helped to sustain that 
belief, is evident, from what is told us of his 
next appearance by the lake side of Galilee. 
John’s quick eye and ear recognised him 
from the boat ; but when they had all land- 
ed and gathered round him, “ None of them,” 


THE JOTJKNEY TO EMMAUS. 


77 


it is said, “ durst ask kirn, Who art thou ? 
knowing that it was the Lord.” Whence the 
desire to put such a question, hut from a pass- 
ing shadowy doubt, and whence the doubt 
but from some change in his appearance? 
When afterwards, on the mountain which 
he had appointed, Jesus showed himself to 
above five hundred brethren at once, they 
saw him, and worshipped ; but some, it is 
said, doubted, — those, let us believe, who 
saw him then for the first and only time, and 
on whom the sight seems to have had the 
same effect that it had in the first instance 
on nearly all who witnessed it. It seems to 
us the best, if not the only way of account- 
ing for this, to suppose that the resurrection 
body of our Lord had passed through a 
stage or two in its transition from the natu- 
ral into the spiritual body ; from its condi- 
tion as nailed upon the cross, to its ethereal- 
ized and glorified condition as now upon the 
throne ; the flesh and blood which cannot 
inherit the heavenly kingdom, still there, 
yet so modified as to be more plastic under 


78 


THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 


the power of the indwelling spirit, less sub- 
ject to the material laws and conditions of 
its earlier being, the corruptible on its way 
to the incorruptible, the mortal putting on 
the clothing of immortality. And that 
strange, half spiritual appearance which the 
risen Lord presented, may it not have served 
to further the great end that our Lord had 
in view throughout the forty days, namely, 
to wean the minds of his disciples from 
their earlier, lower, more human conceptions 
of him, to a time faith in his mingled hu- 
manity and divinity ? 

There was, however, something special, I 
believe, in this instance of the two disciples 
travelling to Emmaus. They might not 
have recognised him, as, clothed perhaps in 
the garb of an ordinary traveller, he put his 
first questions to them by the way; but 
when he assumed the office of their in- 
structor, and, showing such intimate ac- 
quaintance with the Scriptures, made their 
hearts burn within them, as he unfolded 
their new meaning, must they not many a 


THE JOUBHEY TO EMMAUS. 


79 


time have turned on him a very searching 
look, wondering as they looked, who this 
strange teacher possibly could be? Yet 
were two or three hours spent in that close 
and earnest conversation, without their once 
suspecting that it was the Lord. How 
accurately does this accord with the differ- 
ing statements of Mark and Luke ! Mark 
distinctly tells us that he appeared to them 
in another, in a strange form, — a form differ- 
ent from that in which they had seen him 
previously. He appeared to them, as to all 
the others, somewhat changed in aspect ; but 
had that been all, they would speedily have 
recovered from their first surprise, and ere 
many minutes would have identified him. 
For a reason, however, hereafter to be allud- 
ed to, our Lord purposely concealed himself 
till his work of instruction was completed, 
and drew a veil of some kind over their 
eyes, which hindered their discovery of him 
by the way. 

He comes to them as an entire stranger ; 
such as they might naturally have met upon 


80 


THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 


the road, and it is as a stranger that through- 
out he converses with them. “ What man- 
ner of communications,” he says, u are those 
that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and 
are sad ?” Little need, thought one of them 
(his own deep interest in them leading him, 
perhaps, to exaggerate that felt "by the gen- 
eral community) — little need of asking such 
a question. Of what could any two men 
leaving Jerusalem, only two days after that 
crucifixion had occurred — of what else than 
of it, and him the Crucified, could they be 
talking ? “ Art thou only,” says Cleopas, “ a 

stranger in J erusalem, and hast not known 
the things which are come to pass there in 
these days ?” And the stranger says to him, 
What things ? Thus it is, by questions need- 
less for him on his own account to put, but 
very useful to them to answer, that Jesus 
draws out from them that statement, which 
at once reveals the extent of their ignorance 
and incredulity, but, at the same time, the 
amount of their belief, the strength of their 
attachment to Christ, and the bitterness of 


THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 


81 


that grief which the disappointment of their 
expectations regarding him had created. A 
stranger though this man is to them, they do 
not hesitate to confess their faith in Jesus of 
Nazareth as a prophet mighty in words and 
deeds; obnoxious as they know the now 
hated sect to be, they do not hesitate to ac- 
knowledge themselves openly as disciples of 
this persecuted and now crucified Nazarene, 
though the hope they once had, that he 
should have been the Redeemer of Israel, 
they must confess themselves to have relin- 
quished. Nay, so far as the kindly and 
sympathizing inquiry of this stranger won 
for him a way into their confidence, that, as 
if he must be interested in all that concerned 
the discipleship of Jesus, they tell him what 
certain women of their company, and certain 
others of themselves, had reported about the 
sepulchre. 

The stranger’s end is gained. The wound 
has been gently probed ; its nature and ex- 
tent revealed ; and now the remedy is to be 
applied. He who had asked to be informed, 

4 * 


82 


THE JOUEIEY TO EMMAUS. 


takes the place of the instructor; lie wlio 
had been reproached for his ignorance, re- 
proaches in his turn. “ O fools, and slow of 
heart to believe !” Slow of heart, indeed, 
and difficult to convince had they been, who, 
after such explicit declarations of his own 
beforehand, that he should be delivered up 
to the Rulers, and suffer many things at 
their hands, and be crucified, and rise again 
the third day, had nevertheless remained so 
obstinate in their incredulity. Truly the re- 
buke was needed. Yet how faithful are the 
wounds of a Mend ; he wounds but to heal ; 
he rebukes the unbelief, but instantly pro- 
ceeds to remove its grounds, even as he rose 
from his slumber in the storm-tossed fishing- 
boat, first to rebuke the disciples for their 
unbelieving fears, and then to quiet the 
tempest, which had produced them. The 
one great, misleading prejudice of the dis- 
ciples had been their belief that the path of 
the promised Messiah was only to be one of 
triumph and of glory. To rectify that error, 
it was only required that they should be 


THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 


83 


made to see that the predicted triumph and 
glory were alone to be reached through the 
dark avenues of suffering and of death. “ O 
fools, and slow of heart to believe all that 
the prophets have spoken : ought not Christ 
to have suffered these things, and to enter 
into his glory? And beginning at Moses 
and all the prophets, he expounded to them 
in all the Scriptures the things concerning 
himself.” Either Christ, then, is not him- 
self to be believed — in which case it were 
useless to hear and read anything about him 
— or in those Old Testament Scriptures 
there are to be seen everywhere prophetic 
lingers pointing forward to Him. To search 
those Scriptures, and to find little or nothing 
there of Christ, little or nothing to show how 
it behoved him to suffer, and then to enter 
into his glory, is to handle them after a very 
different fashion from that in which they 
were handled by our Lord himself. 

It is not likely that these three travellers 
had a copy of the Old Testament in their 
hands. It was not by reference to chapter 


84 


THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 


and verse, that the exposition of the Saviour 
was conducted ; it was by no minute criticism 
of words and phrases, that the conviction of 
these wayfaring men was carried. They 
were familiar generally with the Scriptures. 
One or two of the leading prophecies about 
the Messiah, such as that first one of God 
himself in paradise, as to the seed of the wo- 
man and the serpent ; such as that of Moses 
as to the raising up of a prophet like unto 
himself ; such as that of Isaiah, when he saw 
his glory, and testified beforehand of the suf- 
ferings by which that glory should be pre- 
ceded and entered ; such as that of Daniel 
about the Messiah being cut off, but not for 
himself — Jesus may have quoted. But not 
alone from direct and specific prophecies — 
from the paschal lamb, and the smitten rock, 
and the serpent of brass, and the blood- 
sprinkled mercy-seat, but from the whole 
history of the Jewish people — from the en- 
tire circle of types and ceremonies and sacri- 
fices, did Jesus draw forth the materials of 
that wonderful exposition by which, for two 


THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 


85 


hours or so, lie kept those listening men 
hanging upon his lips. As we think who 
the expounder in that instance was, and 
what the materials of his exposition, how 
natural the expression, — Would that I had 
heard all these things concerning Christ 
illustrated by Christ himself! But have 
we not the substance of that exposition, as 
much of it as is needful for us to have, pre- 
served in the writings of the New Testa- 
ment, and may we not be sure that if we 
believe not them, neither would we be per- 
suaded though one rose from the dead, as 
Jesus that morning had done, and should 
teach us even as he taught those two disci- 
ples? 

There was something indeed peculiarly, 
sublimely interesting in that two hours’ 
walk and talk of these three men on the 
way to Emmaus. Had you been on that 
road that day, had you met those travellers 
as they journeyed on, beyond the earnest- 
ness of their conversation with one another, 
you would have seen nothing remarkable 


86 


THE JOUBNEY TO EMMAUS. 


about them, nothing to make you turn and 
look back upon them as they passed. Two 
of them are men in humble attire, travelling 
in the humblest fashion, returning to one of 
the humblest village-homes: and the third, 
there is nothing about him different in ap- 
pearance from the other two; nothing to 
keep them from conversing with him as an 
equal, one with whom the most unrestrained 
familiarity might be used. Yet who is He ? 
He who that very morning had burst the 
barriers of the grave ; he in honour of whose 
exit from the tomb angels from heaven had 
been despatched to watch at the foot and at 
the head of the sacred spot, where in death 
his body had for a time reposed ; he who 
was now upon his way to enter into that 
glory which he had with the Father 
before the world was, — Incarnate Deity 
fresh from the conflicts and the victories of 
the garden, the cross, the sepulchre. It is 
literally God walking with men, men walk- 
ing, though they knew it not, with God. 
History tells us of earthly sovereigns strip- 


THE JOUKNEY TO EMMAUS. 


87 


ping themselves at times of all the tokens 
and trappings of royalty, for the purpose of 
mixing on equal terms with the humblest of 
their people; but history never told, and 
imagination never pictured, a disguise, an 
incognito like this. But why was this dis- 
guise adopted, and, in this instance, so long 
preserved? Why, instead of doing as he 
did with the eleven, first manifesting him- 
self, and then opening their understanding 
to understand the Scriptures, did he keep 
himself unknown all the time that the work 
of exposition was going on ? May it not 
have been to obtain such a simple, natural, 
easy access for the truth into those two men’s 
minds and hearts, as to give it, even when 
unsupported by the weight of his own per- 
sonal authority, a firmer and securer hold ? 
Whatever may have been its more special 
object as regards the two disciples, wonder- 
ful indeed was that condescension of our 
Lord which led him to give so many hours 
of hi3 first resurrection-day to this humble 
office. Many a proud scribe in Jerusalem 


88 


THE JOUKXEY TO EMM AITS. 


would have recoiled from it, have deemed it 
a waste of his precious time, if asked to ac- 
company two such humble men, and spend 
so much of one of his Sabbaths in instruct- 
ing them out of the Scriptures. The Divine 
Redeemer himself thought it not a task too 
lowly ; and by devoting, in his own person, 
so much of that first Christian Sabbath to 
it, has he not at once left behind him a pat- 
tern of what all true and faithful exposition 
of the sacred Scriptures ought to be, even 
the unfolding of the things touching a once 
crucified, but now exalted Saviour ; and has 
he not dignified, by himself engaging in it, 
the work of one man’s trying, at any time, 
or in any way, to lead another to the knowl- 
edge of the truth as it is in Jesus? 

It was with heavy hearts that the two 
disciples had left Jerusalem ; and had all the 
journey been like the first few paces of it, 
it had seemed a long way to Emmaus. But 
they are at the village now, and the road 
had never appeared so short. Had they 
imagined they could be there so soon, they 


THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 


89 


would have lingered on the road. And now 
this stranger, whose discourse had so be- 
guiled the way, and made their hearts so 
burn within them, makes as if he would go 
farther. Emmaus, it would seem, is not his 
resting-place. But how can they part from 
him? How may that conversation, which 
has shed such a fresh light into their under- 
standings, such a new hope into their hearts, 
be prolonged ? They invite, they urge him 
to remain. He gives, he makes the oppor- 
tunity for their constraining him to be their 
guest. He acts as he had done with the 
two blind beggars; with the disciples in 
the storm ; with the Syrophenician woman. 
He suffers violence to be used with him; 
and then, when he has brought out all the 
strength of desire and affection towards him 
in the earnest entreaty, he yields to the ur- 
gency he had himself excited. The two 
disciples constrain him, and he goes in ap- 
parently to abide with them. They have 
him now, as they think, with them for the 
whole evening ; and what an evening it shall 


90 


THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 


"be, when, supper over, the conversation of 
the wayside may be renewed ! The humble 
table is quickly spread. This is the home, 
it has been thought, of one of the two dis- 
ciples, and he whose home it is prepares to 
do the duty of the host. That duty is taken 
out of his hands. The mysterious stranger 
takes the bread ; he blesses, he breaks, he 
gives. Who but One could bless and break, 
and give in such a way as this \ The scales 
fall from the disciples’ eyes. ’Tis he, their 
own lost but now recovered Lord and Mas- 
ter. Let him wait but a moment or two, 
they shall be clasping him, as Mary would 
fain have done, to their hearts, or, falling 
down, as the women did, and worshipping 
at his feet. Time is not given them. He 
reveals himself, and disappears. This mo- 
ment known by them, the next vanishing 
from their sight. 


IV. 


life 


tewing 


putting.* 


When they left Jerusalem on tlie after- 
noon of the first day of the week, the two 
disciples had intended to remain that night, 
perhaps permanently, at Emmans. The 
Paschal Sabbath over, they had resolved to 
return to their village home, — to their old 
way of living, burying, as best they could, 
their expectations disappointed. But the. 
conversation by the way, the manifestation 
in the breaking of bread, that revealed and 
vanishing presence of their risen Lord, altered 
the whole current of their thoughts and acts. 
They could not stay at Emmans. Late as it 
was, they instantly arose and returned to 
Jerusalem. How quickly, how eagerly would 
they retrace their steps ! What manner of 
communications would those be that they 

* Mark xvi. 13, 14; Luke xxiv. 33-49; John xx. 19-23. 

(91) 


92 


THE EVENING MEETING. 


would now have with one another; Jiow 
different from those which Jesus had inter- 
rupted; the incredulity turned now into 
faith, the sadness into joy! The stranger 
who had made their hearts burn within 
them, on their way out to the village, he too 
was traversing at the same time the road 
they took on their way back to Jerusalem. 
But he did not join them now ; he left them 
to muse in silence on all they had seen and 
heard, or to add to each other’s wonder, 
gratitude, and gladness, by talking to one 
another by the way. Their hearts were now 
full of the desire to tell to the brethren they 
had left behind in the city all that had hap- 
pened. On reaching Jerusalem, they get at 
once the opportunity they so much desire. 
A meeting of the apostles, and of as many 
others as they could conveniently call to- 
gether, or could entirely trust, had quietly, 
somewhat stealthily convened ; — the first, we 
may believe, since the Thursday evening 
meeting in the upper chamber. And where 
but in that same chamber can we imagine 


THE EVENING MEETING. 


93 


that this Sunday evening assembly gathered ? 
The doors were closed against intruders, but 
these two well-known disciples from Em- 
maus are easily recognised, and at once ad- 
mitted. In what an agitated, conflicting 
state of thought and feeling do they find 
those assembled there ! They had all heard 
the reports of the women and of Mary Mag- 
dalene ; but they say little or nothing about 
them ; perhaps give them little credit. But 
there is Peter, whom no one can well dis- 
trust, telling all the particulars of his inter- 
view, and carrying the conviction of so many, 
that they are joyfully exclaiming: “The 
Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to 
Simon.” But this is not the general, not at 
least the universal state of sentiment. The 
two disciples tell their tale, but it falls on 
many an incredulous ear. They are as little 
believed as the women and Mary Magdalene 
had been. They are trying all they can, by a 
minute recital of how J esus had been known 
of them, to remove the incredulity, when 
suddenly, silently — coming as a spirit com- 


94 


THE EVENING MEETING. 


eth, casting no shadow before him (the 
doors not opening to let him in), no sight 
nor sound giving token of his approach — 
Jesus himself is in the midst of them, and 
his “ Peace be unto you,” stills at once the 
conflicting conversation that had been going 
on. The manner of this appearance may have 
been wholly miraculous and supernatural, or 
it may have been partly or wholly due to 
those new properties with which the resur- 
rection body of the Saviour was endowed. 
Upon this difficult topic I have already said 
all it seems needful or perhaps possible to 
say. We must leave it clothed with the 
mystery which surrounds it. No mystery, 
however, hangs round the kindly, conde- 
scending manner in which Jesus proceeds to 
deal with the terror which his sudden ap- 
pearance had created. He points to his 
hands, his feet, his side, — to the marks of 
those wounds that told of his recent death ; 
marks which it pleased him that his resur- 
rection body should still bear ; marks which, 
it would seem from the apocalyptic vision, 


THE EVENING MEETING. 


95 


were not to be effaced even from that glori- 
fied body which he carried to the throne; 
marks which that form is to wear for ever, 
the only visible memorials that are to sur- 
vive of the great decease accomplished at 
Jerusalem. Jesus asks them to handle him ; 
an invitation which it is difficult to say 
whether they accepted or not. He shows 
them his hands and his feet ; and while yet 
they believe not for joy and wonder, he seeks 
still further to remove their incredulity, by 
showing them that he has still the power, 
though no longer the need, of partaking 
with them of their ordinary food. He eats 
of the fish and of the honeycomb. Doubt 
now gives place to conviction, fear to be- 
lieving joy ; a joy so fresh, so full, that it in 
turn begins to shake the new-born faith. 
How true to nature all this rapid succession 
of conflicting sentiments. Now at last, how- 
ever, that little company of disciples has 
settled into a condition fitting it to listen, 
and Jesus returns to the subject that had 
engrossed the conversation on the way out 


96 


THE EVENING MEETING. 


to Emmaus; to this larger, more influential 
audience he unfolds the testimony that 
Moses, the Prophets, the Psalms — all the 
three divisions into which the Scriptures of 
the Old Testament were classified by the 
Jews — rendered to his Messiahship; dwell- 
ing particularly upon the topic most suited 
to the existing condition of their thoughts, 
how, in accordance with all that had been 
beforehand declared and signified, it behoved 
him, as the Christ, to suffer and then to 
rise again the third day. “ Then opened he 
their understanding, that they might under- 
stand the Scriptures.” Wherever, therefore, 
in the writings of any one of these Christ- 
taught men they refer an important passage 
of the Old Testament to the Messiah, we 
may conclude that they had for doing so 
the direct and authoritative sanction of our 
Lord’s own interpretation. 

But his Messiahship, his death, his resur- 
rection, were not matters in which they 
alone, their nation alone, were interested. 
Now that the needful work of suffering and 


THE EVENING MEETING. 


97 


death was over; now that the wonderful 
exhibition at once of the sacredness of the 
Divine law, the holiness of the Divine char- 
acter, the deep unutterable love of God, had 
been given — now, wide over all the world, 
were repentance and remission of sin to be 
proclaimed in his name ; and they, the men 
to whom Jesus was then speaking, were to 
be the witnesses, the heralds, the preachers 
of this large and all-embracing gospel of 
peace on earth, and good-will, on God’s 
part, towards all the children of men : The 
first and earliest hint this of the nature and 
the extent of their great commission; a 
hint which they did not then understand, 
which they did not understand even under 
the enlightening and quickening influences 
of the day of Pentecost. So far their under- 
standing was opened, that they saw clearly 
now that Christ ought to have suffered these 
things, and then to enter into his glory; 
but their understanding was still shut as to 
that proclamation of God’s forgiving mercy 
and love, which now in the name of Jesus 

Resurrection. O 


98 THE EVENING MEETING. 

was to be borne abroad over the whole 
earth. 

But though it was to be left to time, and 
the after teachings of the Spirit, to lift them 
out of their narrow conceptions of the Di- 
vine love to man, as if its outgoings were to 
be limited to the pale of any one community 
upon earth, still an initial impression of the 
sacredness of their vocation as his disciples, 
of the manner in which the duties of that 
vocation could alone properly be discharged, 
and of the blessed and enduring results 
which were to follow in the train of that dis- 
charge, might be made upon their minds. 
And this was the result which Jesus, in the 
most striking and solemn manner, proceeded 
now to bring about : the first step taken by 
him in the gradual and slow-moving process 
of qualifying them for that mission which 
they, and all other disciples of the Saviour 
after them, were to undertake and carry 
out. 

Then said Jesus unto them again, “ Peace 
be unto you !” — His first greeting, in which 


THE EVENING MEETING. 


99 


the same words had been used, they had 
been too surprised and affrighted to listen 
to, or take home. Now that their minds 
had become more composed, that they had 
settled down into a tranquil and joyful con- 
viction that it was indeed their risen Lord 
who was in the midst of them, he repeats 
the greeting ; repeats it that they might not 
take it — though it was the common saluta- 
tion phrase he used, as meant merely to be 
the usual greeting with which Jew met Jew 
in the ordinary intercourse of life ; that they 
might not take it as a mere expression of 
good-will, a wish for their welfare ; but that 
they might have their thoughts thrown back 
upon what, three evenings before, he had 
said to them : “ Peace I leave with you, my 
peace I give unto you: not as the world 
giveth, give I unto you. Let not your hearts 
be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” He 
had said so with the cross, with the sep- 
ulchre before him. And now the peace 
having been secured, and sealed by the 
blood of the cross and the rising from the 


100 


THE EVENING MEETING. 


sepulchre, with a new emphasis he says to 
them, ‘Peace, my peace, peace with God, 
peace of conscience, the peace of pardon be 
unto you ; take it as coming to you through 
me ; enter into, and enjoy it as the fruit of 
my passion, as God’s free gift to you in me. 
Let the quickening, the comforting assurance 
that God is at peace with you, that you are 
at peace with God, take possession of your 
hearts; that, having tasted and seen that 
the Lord is gracious, you may be prepared 
for executing the high errand on which I am 
about to send you forth, that of publishing 
everywhere the gospel of this peace ; preach- 
ing peace by me to them that are afar off, 
and to them that are nigh; — “For as my 
Father sent me, even so now send I you.” I 
send you forth in my name, and I will qualify 
you by my Spirit.’ And having said so, he 
breathed on them, and said, “ Receive ye the 
Holy Ghost” — an outward and expressive 
symbol of the twofold truth, that dead, 
motionless, useless for all the common work 
of this earthly existence, as lay that dust 


THE EYE MG MEETING. 


101 


which tlie hand of the Creator moulded into 
human form till he breathed into it the 
breath of its natural life — so dead, motion- 
less, useless for the work of our Christian 
calling do we all lie, till the breath of true 
spiritual life be breathed into us by the 
Holy Ghost. And as it was from the lips 
of the risen Saviour that the breath pro- 
ceeded, which spread out upon the little 
company at Jerusalem, so is it from the risen, 
exalted Saviour that the Spirit comes, whose 
life-giving influences spread over the whole 
church of the first-born. But specially upon 
this occasion was the breathing of Jesus 
upon the disciples, and the gift which ac- 
companied that breathing, meant to indicate 
that the mission on which Jesus was send- 
ing these disciples out — that of being wit- 
nesses for him — was one that could alone be 
discharged by those who, through him, had 
received more or less of that heavenly gift. 
It was this impartation of the Spirit, which 
was to form the one, indispensable qualifica- 
tion for the work ; without which it could 


102 THE EVENING MEETING. 

not be done. We know, historically, that 
it was bnt a very limited measure of this 
gift which was actually, upon this occasion, 
bestowed. The Holy Ghost was not yet in 
his fulness given, because that Jesus was not 
yet glorified. The more plentiful effusion 
of this gift was reserved for the day of Pen- 
tecost. That Spirit, who was to convince of 
sin, and to lead into all truth, began even 
then, indeed, his gracious work in the minds 
and hearts of these disciples, by convincing 
them of their unbelief and hardness of heart, 
and by opening their minds to understand 
the Scriptures. This was but an earnest of 
better things to come — a few sprinkled drops 
of that fuller baptism wherewith they were 
afterwards to be baptized ; but yet enough 
to teach that it was by Spirit-taught, Spirit- 
moved men — by men in whose breasts the 
heaven-kindled fire of the true spiritual life 
had begun to burn-r-that the commission 
Jesus had been giving could alone be exe- 
cuted. And let not those to whom Jesus is 
now speaking, speaking as the heads and 


THE EVEiNTFG MEETING. 


103 


representatives of the whole body of his true 
followers upon earth; let them not think, 
weak as they are, powerless as they appear, 
that, in going forth to proclaim in his name, 
to every penitent transgressor, the free, full, 
instant, gracious pardon of all his sins, they 
are embarking in an ideal, unreal work — a 
work of which they shall never know 
whether they are succeeding in it or not. 

£ No,’ says the Saviour ; 4 Partake of the 
peace I now impart, accept the commission I 
now bestow ; go forth in my name ; receive 
ye the Holy Ghost to guide you ; announce 
the news of God to sinners; proclaim the 
remission of sins, and, verily I say, whoseso- 
ever sins ye thus remit, they are remitted ; 
whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained. 7 
Such I take to be the real spirit and object 
of these last words of Jesus, as spoken by 
him to his disciples at this time; words 
spoken to animate them in their after work 
by the assurance that they should not labour 
in vain ; that what they should do on earth 
should be owned and ratified in heaven. It 


104 


THE EVENING MEETING. 


were to misinterpret the incidents of that 
evening meeting; it were to mistake the 
simple, immediate, and precise object which, 
in using them, our Lord had in view, to ex- 
plain these words, as if they were intended 
to clothe the eleven apostles, and after them, 
their successors or representatives — to clothe 
any class of officials in the church, exclusive- 
ly, with a power of remitting and retaining 
sins. Where is the evidence that, as origin- 
ally spoken, the words were addressed ex- 
clusively to the eleven ? There were others 
present as well as they. u The two disciples,” 
Luke tells us, “found the eleven gathered 
together, and those that were with them.” 
These other members of the infant church, 
with the two disciples, had the benediction 
pronounced on them, as well as on the 
eleven ; the instructions were given to them, 
as well as to the eleven; the breath was 
breathed on them, as well as on the eleven. 
Had Jesus meant, when he spake of this re- 
mitting and retaining sins, to restrict to the 
eleven the power and privileges conferred, 


THE EVENING MEETING. 


105 


should lie not by some word or token have 
made it manifest that suck was kis desire ? 
At other times he was at pains to single out 
the twelve, when he had something meant 
for their eyes and their ears alone. Is it 
likely that at this time he would have 
omitted to draw a line between them and 
the others who were before him, had it been 
to them that these closing words were ex- 
clusively addressed? 

But we have another and still stronger 
reason for not believing in any such restric- 
tion. Jesus had once before used words of 
nearly the same import with those that are 
now before us, and he had addressed them 
to the disciples at large : u Moreover, if thy 
brother shall trespass against thee, go and 
tell him his fault between thee and him 
alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast 
gained thy brother. But if he will not 
hear thee, then take with thee one or two 
more, that in the mouth of two or three 
witnesses every word may be established. 
And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it 


106 


THE EVENING MEETING. 


unto the church : hut if he neglect to hear 
the church, let him he unto thee as an 
heathen man and a publican. Verily I say 
unto you, Whatsoever ye shall hind on 
earth shall he hound in heaven ; and what- 
soever ye shall loose on earth shall he loosed 
in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if 
two of you shall agree on earth as touching 
any thing that they shall ask, it shall he 
done for them of my Father which is 
in heaven. For where two or three are 
gathered together in my name, there am I 
in the midst of them.” The two concluding; 
verses, as well as the preceding context, con- 
tain the conclusive evidence, that it was not 
to any select class or order of his followers 
that J esus said, “ Whatsoever ye shall hind 
on earth shall he hound in heaven; and 
whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall he 
loosed in heaven” (Matt, xviii. 15-20). 

We are not in the least disposed to doubt, 
that while Christ speaks of the remitting 
and the retaining of sins as pertaining to 
the Church at large, his words cover the 


THE EVENING MEETING. 


107 


acts of the Church in her organized capacity, 
the inflicting and removing of ecclesiastical 
censures through her office-bearers in the ex- 
ercise of discipline. Here, however, we have 
two remarks to make : 1<?£, That it is only 
so far as these acts are done by spiritual 
men, seeking and following the guidance of 
the Spirit, only so far as they are in accord- 
ance with Christ’s own expressed will, that 
they are of any avail, or can plead any heaven- 
ly ratification ; and, 2dly, That all the force 
they carry is nothing more or less than an 
authoritative and official declaration of what 
that will of the Lord is. Neither in any 
man, in any pope or any priest, in any com- 
munity, or in any ecclesiastical court, lies 
the absolute, the independent, the arbitrary 
power to absolve the sinner from his sins. 
But did not he, we are asked, with whom 
alone it is acknowledged that that power 
rests, appoint the eleven as his earthly dele- 
gates, and in the commission here given 
them, convey into their hands as such, that 
power ? Just as little as in two other com- 


108 


THE EVENING MEETING. 


missions given to two of the old prophets, 
he handed over to them that power over 
the kingdoms and nations of the earth 
which we rightly believe and affirm, resides 
alone in the hands of the Almighty. “ Then 
the Lord put forth his hand, and touched 
my mouth : and the Lord said unto me, Be- 
hold, I have put my words in thy mouth. 
See, I have this day set thee over the na- 
tions, and over the kingdoms, to root out, 
and to pull down, and to destroy, and to 
throw down, and to build, and to plant” 
(Jer. i. 9, 10). “ It came to pass also in the 

twelfth year, in the fifteenth day of the 
month, that the word of the Lord came 
unto me, saying, Son of man, wail for the 
multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, 
even her, and the daughters of the famous 
nations, unto the nether parts of the earth, 
with them that go down into the pit ” (Ezek. 
xxxii. 17, 18). 

Here, in terms not less distinct than those 
in which Christ gives his disciples power 
over the sins -of men, to remit or to retain, 


THE EVENING MEETING. 


109 


God gives to the two prophets power over 
the nations to cast down and to destroy. 
The true interpretation of the grant or com- 
mission is in both cases the same. In the 
exercise of any power, inherent or delegated, 
natural or acquired, Jeremiah and Ezekiel 
were altogether impotent of themselves .to 
overturn a nation; in the exercise of any 
power, original or conferred, personal or of- 
ficial, the apostles were just as impotent to 
remove any sinner’s guilt. The prophet’s 
function was limited to the denouncing of a 
doom which it was for the hand of Jehovah 
alone to execute. The Church’s function is 
as strictly limited to the announcing of a 
pardon which it is for the grace of the hea- 
venly Forgiver alone to bestow. And if, in 
executing that simple but most honourable 
office of proclaiming unto all men that there 
is remission of sins through the name of 
Jesus, she teaches that it is alone through 
her channels — through channels that priest- 
ly or ordained and consecrated hands can 
alone open — the pardon cometh, she trenches 


110 


THE EVENING MEETING. 


upon the rights and prerogatives of Him 
whom she represents, and turns that eye 
upon herself that should "be turned alone on 
liim. 

But it is the gracious office of the Church, 
of every individual memlber thereof, of every 
distinct community thereof, in the sense here 
indicated, to absolve the sinner, to assure 
him of the Divine forgiveness, to help him 
to believe in that forgiveness. Wherever 
the gospel of the grace of God is preached, 
not generally, but pointedly, to an individ- 
ual man, and he is entreated and encouraged 
to take hold of peace, to accept of pardon, 
to trust in the mercy of Jesus, to believe in 
the forgiving love of God, — then is that of- 
fice of remitting sins in the name of Jesus 
undertaken and discharged. Two illustra- 
tive instances occur to us : the one public 
and official, the other private and personal. 
The first is that of the penitent offender at 
Corinth, who was in danger of being swal- 
lowed up of overmuch sorrow. Assuming 
that it lay with the Church to extend her 


THE EVENING- MEETING. 


Ill 


forgiveness to that offender, desiring to do 
nothing upon his own individual authority, 
claiming no exclusive power of priestly ab- 
solution, Paul invites the Corinthian believ- 
ers to deal tenderly, forgivingly witb that 
man, and to receive him back into their 
communion, telling them that he was quite 
prepared to go along with them in such 
treatment of the penitent. “Wherefore I 
beseech you,” he says, “ that you would con- 
firm your love toward him. To whom ye 
forgive anything, I forgive also ; for if I for- 
gave anything, to whom I forgave it, for 
your sakes forgave I it, in the person of 
Christ.” The great object was to make the 
repentant one feel how wide, how generous, 
how cordial and unreserved was the forgive- 
ness which the Church extended to him, 
that he might all the more confidingly re- 
pose in that other sympathy, that other for- 
giveness, which, as far as the heavens are 
above the earth, are above all the sympathy, 
all the forgiveness of man. 

Our other instance belongs to a late pe- 


112 


THE EVENING MEETING. 


riod in tlie life of the beloved disciple. It 
lies beyond the period embraced in the New 
Testament history, but is well authenticated. 
When the tyrant who sent John to Patmos 
was dead, the apostle returned to Ephesus. 
Engaged in a visitation of the neighbouring 
churches, he saw in one of them a youth of 
so attractive an appearance that he specially 
committed him to the care and guardianship 
of the bishop, or chief minister of the 
church. The minister took the youth to his 
own home, cherished him, educated him, and 
at length baptized him. As he grew up, 
however, the care of his guardian relaxed, 
and he fell into the company of a band of 
idle and dissolute youths, who plunged to- 
gether in a career of sin which led to the 
committal of offences that exposed them to 
the severest penalties of the law. Escaped 
from all restraint, and forming his associates 
into a band of robbers, the youth became 
their captain, surpassing all of them in deeds 
of violence and blood. Time ran on, and 
the aged apostle once more visited the same 


THE EVENING MEETING-. 


113 


church. He asked about tke youth, and 
wept when he heard his story. He took his 
way instantly to the district which the rob- 
ber-band infested, and was taken prisoner by 
the outguard of the banditti. He neither 
tried to fly nor offer any resistance to his 
captors. “ Conduct me to your captain,” he 
said to them ; u I have come for the very 
purpose of seeing him.” As soon as he 
recognised the venerable apostle advancing 
towards him, the captain would have 
fled; but the apostle pursued him, crying 
out, “ "Why dost thou fly, my son, from 
me thy father — thy defenceless aged father \ 
Have compassion on me, my son. Fear not, 
thou still hast hope. I will intercede with 
Christ for thee. Believe that Christ hath 
sent me.” The fugitive was arrested. They 
met once more. The apostle entreated him ; 
prayed with him ; solemnly assured him that 
there was pardon for him at the hands of 
Christ; and did not leave him till he led 
him back again, and restored him to the 
Church. In the manner of his restoring that 


114 


THE EVENING MEETING. 


erring youth, the Ibeloved apostle showed 
how thoroughly he had imbibed the spirit 
of his divine Master, from whose lips half a 
century before he had listened to the words, 
“ Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remit- 
ted.’ 


Y. 


©to df ©torn®.* 

Was it his fault, or his misfortune simply, 
that Thomas was not present at that first 
meeting on the evening of the day of the re- 
surrection ? Clearly enough, we cannot charge 
his absence with the same kind of neglect, 
with which now a refusal to join in the or- 
dinary services of the sanctuary would be 
loaded ; for no such services had then been 
instituted, nor had any authority, human or 
divine, as yet prescribed them. That eve- 
ning conference, hastily summoned under 
the prompting of the strange incidents of 
the day, was, in fact, the first of those as- 
semblings on the Lord’s day which have 
since become one of the established cus- 
toms of Christianity. But as no such cus- 
tom had as yet been established, Thomas 
cannot be accused of violating it. The cir- 


* John xx. 24-29. 


( 115 ) 


116 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 

cumstances, however, under which that con- 
ference was held, were so peculiar, the pres- 
sure which prompted it so urgent, that we 
cannot imagine that any slight or fortuitous 
impediment would have kept any one of 
the eleven away. It may, therefore, have 
been Thomas’s extreme incredulity as to the 
fact of the resurrection, the utter and blank 
despair into which the death of his Master 
had cast him, which indisposed him to join 
the rest. If it were so ; if he kept aloof 
from his brethren, as believing that no good 
could come from their assembling ; that it 
was all over with the hopes as to their Mas- 
ter which they had been cherishing ; that 
they were mere idle tales which had been 
circulating about his having risen from the 
dead, — then, for his neglect of all that Jesus 
had predicted about his death and resurrec- 
tion, and for his treatment of the testimony 
of Peter and the other early visitors of the 
sepulchre, he was amply punished, in losing 
that sight of the risen Jesus given to the 
others, and in his being left, for the seven 


THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 117 


days that followed, to the wretchedness of 
uncertainty and doubt — an uncertainty and 
doubt which would be all the bitterer, as 
contrasted with the unclouded convictions 
and new-born joy of his brother disciples. 
Whilst they, lifted from the depths of their 
despair, were congratulating one another on 
the great triumph over death and the grave 
which them Master had achieved, were 
strengthening each other’s iaith, and height- 
ening each other’s joy, he, alone and discon- 
solate, was scraping together the scanty food 
on which his incredulity might nourish itself. 
In the course of that week, his brethren made 
many attempts to rid him of his distrust. 
But all in vain ; the more they insisted, the 
more he refused. The stronger they affirmed 
the proof to be, the more inflexible became 
his resolution to resist it. The particulars 
of the manifold conversations and discus- 
sions which would, no doubt, go on between 
them, are not preserved. All that is told 
is, that he took and kept resolutely to that 
position behind which he entrenched himself, 


118 THE IN CREDULITY OF THOMAS. 

as lie said, “ Except I shall see in his hands 
the print of the nails, and put my finger 
into the print of the nails, and thrust my 
hand into his side, I will not believe.” What 
were the grounds, real or fictitious, upon 
which this incredulity of Thomas rested; 
and how came that incredulity to take such 
a shape, and to embody itself in such a 
declaration ? 

Here, I think, by realizing distinctly the 
actual condition of things, both as regards 
the external circumstances which surrounded 
him, and the jaundiced eye with which he 
was disposed to look at them, we may con- 
vince ourselves that the incredulity of 
Thomas was not due to any reluctance on 
his part to believe in the resurrection, sim- 
ply because of its being a strange, a super- 
natural occurrence. In that age, and in that 
country, this was a form of unbelief al- 
together rare, quite unlikely to have been ex< 
hibited by Thomas, or any follower of Jesus 
Christ. A belief in the supernatural was 
general, almost universal. To withhold his 


THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 119 


belief in any occurrence, purely and solely 
because it was miraculous, would have made 
a man about as conspicuous then, as a be- 
lief in all the alleged miracles of ancient and 
modern times would make a man conspicu- 
ous now. Between that time and this, the 
world has undergone an entire revolution in 
the state of its general belief, in the form of 
its practical infidelity. Besides, even if there 
had been a large leaven of Sadduceeism 
working originally in the mind of Thomas, 
he had already witnessed, in his attendance 
upon Christ, incidents too extraordinary for 
him to refuse credence to the resurrection 
purely and solely on the ground of its sin- 
gularity. Neither he nor any others of the 
Lord’s disciples — unwilling, as they all were 
at first, to believe that their Master was in- 
deed alive again ; difficult as they all were 
of conviction on this point — would have ad- 
mitted their initial hesitation and incredulity 
to have proceeded from any such source. It 
was not the character of the event, it was 
the nature of their precedent faith in, and 


120 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 

their precedent expectations about, their 
Master and his kingdom, which generated 
the difficulty which was felt by them as to 
believing in the resurrection. The true 
fountain of their earlier incredulity lay 
within, and not without ; in their prejudices 
in regard to other matters, not in the nature 
and circumstances of the resurrection. There 
appears to me, therefore, to be a violence 
done to historic truth, to the real state of 
the case, when Thomas is taken, as he so 
often is, as a type or early instance of that 
unbelief, belonging rather to modern than 
to ancient times, which staggers at all mir- 
acles, and is indisposed to admit anything 
supernatural. 

Thomas’s incredulity seems to have out- 
stripped that of all the other disciples. 
They would not believe the Galilean women, 
when they brought to them the first reports 
of the resurrection ; but they had believed 
when Peter told them that he had seen the 
Lord, even before they saw him with their 
own eyes. But Thomas will not believe, 


THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 121 


though to Peter’s testimony there is added 
that of the two disciples who went out to 
Emmaus, and that of the whole body of the 
disciples to whom Jesus had afterwards ap- 
peared. To what is this excess, this peculiar 
obstinacy of unbelief on Thomas’s part to 
be attributed ? Was he the most prejudiced 
man among them ; the man who clung most 
tenaciously to his earlier ideas and pre- 
possessions, and would not let them go ? Did 
those common elements of unbelief, which 
operated in the breasts of the others as well as 
in his, yet work in his with so much greater 
force as to signalize him in this way, and 
keep him standing out in his distrust for so 
long a time beyond them ? There was one of 
those elements which we have some reason 
to think did work powerfully on Thomas. It 
would be quite a mistake to conceive of 
Thomas, because of his abiding incredulity, 
that he was a cold, selfish, cautious, unsan- 
guine, naturally misbelieving man, hard to con- 
vince of anything which lay outside the circle 
of his own observations, or that did not touch 

Resurrection. 6 


122 THE INCEEDULITY OF THOMAS. 

or affect Ms own interests. Whatever in 
origin and nature his scepticism was, it was 
not the scepticism of religions indifference, nor 
did it spring from a predisposition to doubt. 
That the spirit of curiosity, of inquiry, was 
strong in him, we may perhaps infer from 
his breaking in upon our Lord’s discussion 
in the upper chamber, saying, “Lord, we 
know not whither thou goest, and how can 
we know the way?” Fuller evidence that 
he possessed and knew how to exercise the 
critical faculty ; that he liked to search and 
sift the evidence, and get at the real and 
solid grounds for believing, shall meet us 
presently; but we must dismiss from our 
minds the idea that he answered in any way 
to the description which Wordsworth has 
given us of the man — 

“A smooth-rubb’d soul, to which could cling 
No form of feeling, great or small ; 

A reasoning, self-sufficient thing, 

An intellectual all in all.” 

The only other notice of him in the gospel 
narrative, besides the one already alluded 


THE IXCKEDULITY OF THOMAS. 123 


to, and that in the passage now before ns, 
forbids us to entertain any such ideas of 
Thomas’s natural character and disposition. 
Escaping out of the hands of his enemies, 
Jesus had retired to Bethabara. To him, in 
his retreat, the sorrowing sisters sent their 
message: “Lord, behold, he whom thou 
lovest is sick.” The messengers were left 
without an answer. But, after two days of 
delay and inaction, Jesus abruptly says to 
his disciples, without explaining anything of 
the object of his visit, “ Let us go into Judea 
again.” It seemed a fatal resolution; the 
disciples try to turn their Master from acting 
on it. “Master,” they say to him, “the 
Jews of late sought to stone thee, and goest 
thou thither again?” Their Master then 
tells of the reason for his going, and of his 
resolution at all hazards to carry out his in- 
tention. Then, says one of the twelve, if 
he will go, go to almost certain death, “ let 
us also go, that we may die with him.” Had 
the name not been given, had we not been 
told which of them it was who so instantly, 


124 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 

so warmly, so generously declared himself 
ready to die with his Master rather than de- 
sert him, we should have said that it must 
have been Peter who spake these words ; but 
it was Thomas, to whom much of Peter’s 
ardour appears to have belonged. Upon 
such a man, so ardent ( in his attachment to 
his Master, we can readily believe that the 
blow of the crucifixion came with a peculiar- 
ly stunning force. In proportion to the eag- 
erness of his hopes would be the blankness 
of his despair; nor is it wonderful that, 
sunk into the depths of that despair, he 
would at first refuse to believe in the resur- 
rection. Still, however, attribute what 
extra force we may to this one or that other 
of the ingredients of the unbelief shown by 
Thomas in common with his brethren, it 
seems difficult to understand the pertinacity 
of Thomas in standing out so long and so 
stubbornly against all attempts of his 
brethren to convince him. The great bulk 
of them had believed before they had seen 
the Lord. Why should that evidence, which 


THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 


125 


was sufficient to carry tlieir faith, not have 
carried his ? Yes, but they all at last had 
seen ; they had seen, and he had not. In 
that: very distinction do we not get sight of 
the secret bias by which the spirit of 
Thomas was swayed over to an unwilling- 
ness to give credence to the resurrection, an 
incredulity which, in self-justification, built 
up those buttresses of self-defence, behind 
which it finally entrenched itself, and from 
which it would not be dislodged? The 
others had seen him, and he had not ; why 
should he be asked to believe on different 
evidence from theirs ? He had been as at- 
tached a follower of Jesus as any of them. 
Why should he be singled out, and left the 
only one who had not seen his Master ? He 
did not like, he did not choose, to be indebt- 
ed to others for the grounds of his believing. 
He had just as good a right to ocular proof 
as they had ; and, in fact, till he got it he 
would not believe. The unwillingness that 
his faith should be ruled by theirs, generated 
a disposition to question the soundness of 


126 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 

that faith. The Evangelist has given ns 
only the conclusion to which Thomas came, 
the result of the many conferences with his 
brethren, and to which he for so many days 
so resolutely adhered. The very terms in 
which he embodied this resolution enables 
us to fill up the blank. Jesus had come 
amongst them, the other disciples would tell 
Thomas, suddenly, silently, — the door being 
shut; they had not seen him till he was 
standing in the midst. It was very like the 
mode of a spirit’s entrance ; very unlike the 
manner in which one clothed with a solid, 
substantial body would or could appear. 
They confessed to Thomas that unless it 
were the two disciples who had just come 
in from Emmaus, all of them at first believed 
that it was a spirit, none of them that it 
was Christ : that he had himself noticed this, 
and had corrected their first and false im- 
pression. He had eaten in their presence, 
he had shown them the marks in his hands 
and side ; he had said, “ Handle me, and see ; 
for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye 


THE IjST CREDULITY OF THOMAS. 127 

see me have.” Yes, but bad any of them 
accepted the invitation, had any of them 
made such scrutiny of these marks, as to be 
sure that they were not superficial ? They 
could not say they had. Strictly interrogat- 
ed by one who was anxious to detect any 
weak point in the evidence, they could not 
deny that it was within the limits of the 
possible that there might have been a mis- 
take ; that there was a difference, they could 
not tell what, between the appearance of 
their Master as they had seen him before 
death, and as they saw him at the evening 
meeting. Seizing greedily upon anything 
which could possibly create a doubt, and 
turning it into an instrument of self-justifica- 
tion, Thomas at last declares, “Except I 
shall not only see in his hands the print of 
the nails, but shall put my finger into the 
print of the nails, and thrust my hand into 
his side, I will not believe.” No small 
amount of ingenious casuistry springing out 
of wounded pride, an exaggerated feeling of 
self-consequence working in a nature not 


128 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 

less strong in will tlian ardent in affec- 
tion. 

“I will not believe.” ‘And is it even 
thus,’ we feel disposed to make answer, 1 tliat 
thy hurt vanity hopes to redeem itself from 
the fancied oversight ; is it thus that placed, 
as thou thinkest, below thy brethren, by 
not having got the same proof given them, 
thou thinkest to set thyself right by putting 
thyself above them, and declaring that that 
proof may have been enough for • them, but 
is not enough for thee ? What right hast thou 
to ask a kind or amount of evidence above 
that which has satisfied all these thy bre- 
thren, and which would have satisfied any 
one unbiassed by deep precedent prejudice ? 
What right hast thou to dictate thus to 
God, and to declare that thou wilt not be- 
lieve till the form of proof thou prescribest 
be afforded? Thou wilt not believe — and 
if thou dost not, who but thyself will be 
the loser ? Hadst thou been in the hands 
of man, in any other hands than those of so 
gracious a Master, thou mightest have wait- 


THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 129 


eel long enough ere the proof was given, 
which in such spirit was demanded.’ 

Seven days go past, and the apostles are 
once more gathered together on the evening 
of the second first-day of the week. Thomas 
is with them now. What brought him 
there ? Why, if he thought them wrong in 
rejoicing over an event, in the reality of 
which they had not sufficient reason to be- 
lieve, did he join himself to their company? 
Because, I believe, with all his assumed and 
declared incredulity, he was not in his in- 
most heart such an utter unbeliever as he 
would have others think he was. He had 
taken up a position which it behoved him 
to defend ; but I am much mistaken, if a 
strong desire, an expectation, nay, something 
even of a faith, that it was even as Iris bre- 
thren had told him, was not working latent- 
ly, yet strongly in his breast. We often 
grievously err in this respect, in our judg- 
ment or representations of others. If a man 
is known or said to be a covetous or an am- 
bitious man, we are too apt to make him all 


130 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 

covetousness or all ambition, and nothing 
beside. And so Thomas, being obstinately 
incredulous, we might imagine him to be ut- 
terly so. Not at all likely. There was room 
in him, as there is in most men, for very op- 
posite and conflicting states of thpught and 
emotion. We believe, therefore, that it 'was 
in a very mixed state of faith and feeling 
that Thomas sat down that evening with the 
rest. They have not sat long when again, 
in the very same way in which he had come 
before, Jesus enters and stands before them. 
The general salutation over, and before 
another word was spoken, he turns to 
Thomas and says, “ Reach hither thy finger, 
and behold my hands ; and reach hither thy 
hand, and thrust it into my side : and be not 
faithless, but believing.” How sudden, how 
unexpected the address ! Thomas knew 
that for seven days none of the disciples 
had seen the Lord ; none of them could have 
reported to him the words that he had used. 
Yet now are these very words repeated. It 
is the omniscient J esus ; it is his own well- 


* THE IN CREDULITY OF THOMAS. 131 


loved Master who stands before him. In- 
stant within him is the rebound from in- 
credulity to faith, — to a far higher faith than 
that simply in the reality of the resurrec- 
tion ; of that he has no doubt. lie does not 
■what the Lord desires, and what he himself 
desired before. He does not put his finger 
into the print of the nails ; he does not 
thrust his hand into the side. Enough to 
see that well-known form ; enough to hear 
that well-loved voice. That sight, those 
words of Jesus, are sufficient to rebuke and 
to remove his unbelief. In a moment his 
doubts all flee; faith takes their place: a 
faith purified, exalted, strengthened ; a faith 
in the true divinity as well as in the true 
humanity of his risen Lord ; a faith higher, 
perhaps, at that moment than that to which 
any of his brethren around had attained. 
Adoring, believing, loving, the fervent, affec- 
tionate Thomas casts himself at his Master’s 
feet, exclaiming, “ My Lord and my God !” 

A great advance here, we may well be- 
lieve, on all Thomas’s earlier conceptions of 


132 THE IN CREDULITY OF THOMAS. 

Iris Master’s character. And may we not 
"believe also that the hitter experience of the 
preceding week, — the troubled exercises of 
thought through which he then had passed, 
the searchings of those Scriptures which it 
was reported to him had been quoted and com- 
mented on by Christ himself, — had all been 
secretly preparing him to take this advancing 
step ; to believe that the Messiah of ancient 
prophecy was a very different Being in char- 
acter and office from what he had before im- 
agined ; much lowlier in some respects, much 
higher in others. And now, all at once, the 
revelation of the Bedeemer’s glory bursts 
upon him as Jesus in person stands before 
him ; and not only does all his former in- 
credulity die away, but on its ruins there 
rises a faith which springs up all the higher 
and stronger, because of the pressure by 
which it had previously been kept in check. 
Jesus knew how prepared Thomas was to 
call him Lord and God. He then mi ght, be 
asked to do what to Mary was so emphati- 
cally forbidden. “ Touch me not,” he said to 


THE IN CREDULITY OF THOMAS. 133 


her whose love to him had too much in it of 
the earthly, the human, — too little of the 
spiritual, the divine. “Reach hither thy 
hand,” he said to Thomas. The invitation 
may be safely given to him who is ready to 
own the divinity of his Lord. 

The title given him, conveying as it did so 
distinct and emphatic a testimony to that 
divinity, Jesus at once, as if it were his by 
birthright, accepts. But though he refuses 
not the tendered homage, he passes no such 
approving judgment on him who presents it, 
as he had formerly done upon Peter, when 
he had made a like confession of his faith, 
and Christ had called him blessed. Instead 
of this, Christ administers now a mild but 
effective rebuke: “Thomas, because thou 
hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed 
are they who have not seen, and yet have 
believed.” Christ could not mean by saying 
so, to declare that he who believes without 
seeing is more blessed than he who upon 
sight believes; for that would exalt the 
weakest believer now above the strongest 


134 THE INCEEDULITY OF THOMAS. 

believer of Christ’s own age. The idea that 
Jesus evidently intended to convey was this, 
that of two kinds of faith equally strong, 
that was to him a more acceptable, and to 
the possessor a more peace-giving one, which 
rested on reasonable testimony in absence 
of personal observation, than that which 
would not yield to such kind of evidence, 
and demanded that ocular demonstration 
should be given. It was, in fact, as addressed 
to Thomas, a distinct enough yet delicate 
intimation, that his faith had been all the 
more acceptable to his Master if it had not 
been delayed so long. But though this was 
the primary meaning of the saying, it is not 
without its bearings upon those who, like 
ourselves, have not seen, and yet are called 
to believe. The spirit of Thomas still lives 
among us. Have we not often detected our- 
selves, thinking at least, if not saying, that, 
had we lived in the days of Jesus Christ, — 
had we seen what those disciples saw, — we 
would not have doubted as they did ; that, 
give us but the evidence that they had, and 


THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 


135 


our doubts would disappear? We practice 
thus a strange deception upon ourselves. 
We transfer ourselves in fancy to those 
scenes of the gospel history, carrying with 
us all the ideas of our age, forgetting that 
very different were the ideas of the men of 
that generation, who, though they had the 
advantage of the sight, had the disadvantage 
of the prejudices of their country and their 
epoch. So equalized in point of advantage 
and of responsibility do we believe the two 
periods to have been, that we may safely 
affirm, that the men of this generation who 
will not believe in the testimony of the ori- 
ginal eye-witnesses, had they been of that 
generation, would not have believed though 
they had been the eye-witnesses themselves, 
lie who now says, I will not believe till I 
see, would not, even seeing, have then be- 
lieved. 

Two closing reflections are offered. First, 
Take this case of Thomas, his throwing him- 
self at once at his Master’s feet, exclaiming, 
My Lord, my God, as a most instructive in- 


136 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 

stance of the exercise and expression of a true, 
loving, affectionate, appropriating faith. It 
is outgoing, self-forgetting, Christ-engrossed. 
No raising by Thomas of any question as to 
whether one who had been incredulous so 
long, would be unwelcome when at last he 
believed. No occupation of mind or heart 
with any personal considerations whatever. 
Christ is there before him; thought to be 
lost, more than recovered ; his eye beaming 
with love, his encouraging invitation given. 
No doubt about his willingness to receive, 
his desire to be trusted. Thomas yields at 
once to the power of such a gracious presence, 
unshackled by any of those false barriers we 
so often raise ; the full, warm, gushing tide 
of adoring, embracing, confiding love, goes 
forth and pours itself out in the expression, 
My Lord , and my God! Best and most 
blessed exercise of the spirit, when the eye 
in singleness of vision fixes upon Jesus, and, 
oblivious of itself, and all about itself, the 
abashed heart fills with adoration, gratitude, 
and love, and in the fulness of its emotion 


THE IXCEEDULITY OF THOMAS. 137 


casts itself at tlie feet of Jesus, saying with 
Thomas, My Lord, My God. 

Second , , Let us take this instance of our 
Lord’s treatment of Thomas, as a guide and 
example to us how to treat those who have 
doubts and difficulties about the great facts 
and truths of religion. There was surely a 
singular toleration, a singular tenderness, a 
singular condescension in the manner of the 
Saviour’s conduct here towards the doubt- 
ing, unbelieving apostle. There was much 
about those doubts of Thomas affording 
ground of gravest censure, the bad morale 
of the heart had much to do with them. It 
was not only an unreasonable, it was a proud, 
a presumptuous position he took up, in dic- 
tating the conditions upon which alone he 
would believe. What abundant materials 
for controversy, for condemnation did his 
case supply ! Yet not by these does Jesus 
work upon him, but by love, — by simply 
showing himself, by stooping even to com- 
ply with the conditions so unreasonably and 
presumptuously prescribed. And if, in kin- 


A 


138 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 

dred cases, when the spirit of religious in- 
credulity is busy in any human breast, doing 
there its unhappy work in blasting the in- 
ward peace, waiving all controversy we could 
but present the Saviour as he is, and get the 
eye to rest upon him, and the heart to take 
in a right impression of the depth and the 
tenderness and the condescension of his love, 
might not many a vexed spirit be led to 
throw itself down before such a Saviour, 
saying, Lord, I believe; help thou mine 
unbelief. 


VI. 


©to 0{ Cl&Iite.* 

Speaking to liis disciples in the upper 
chamber before his death, Jesus said to them, 
“After I am risen again, I will go before 
yon into Galilee.” On the morning of the 
resurrection, the angel said to the first visit- 
ants of the empty sepulchre, “ Go your way, 
tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth be- 
fore yon into Galilee ; there shall ye see him, 
as he said unto yon.” And as they went to 
execute this message, Jesus himself met 
them, and said, “ Be not afraid : go tell my 
brethren that they go into Galilee, and there 
shall they see me.” Pointed so frequently 
and emphatically to Galilee as to the chosen 
district within which their Master was to 
manifest himself, we might have anticipated 
that the apostles would have taken their im- 
mediate departure from Jerusalem. They 


* John xxi. 1-14. 


( 139 ) 


140 


THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 


could not liave done so, however, during the 
Passover week, without being guilty of a 
great offence against the religious feeling of 
their fellow-countrymen. They stayed, there- 
fore, for these ten days still in the holy city. 
This delay in proceeding to Galilee, had their 
Master’s sanction not indistinctly put upon 
it, by his twice appearing to them collec- 
tively, whilst they yet lingered in the me- 
tropolis. And yet, upon the first of these 
occasions, on the evening of the day of the 
resurrection, Jesus said to them, “ Behold, I 
send the promise of my Father upon you : 
but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until 
ye be endued with power from on high.” 
How are we to explain the contradictory 
orders upon which, given in the course of 
the same day, they were called upon to act ? 
Galilee had obviously, for some special 
reasons, been selected by Christ as the region 
in which some special revelations of himself, 
after his resurrection, were to be given. Did 
this spring from a strong desire to revisit the 
scenes of his early life, the neighbourhoods in 


TIIE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 


141 


which most of his wonderful works were 
done? In solitude and concealment, shun- 
ning everything like frequent or continued 
intercourse even with his own disciples, 
Jesus was to spend forty days on earth, be- 
fore his ascension to the Father. Would it 
have been unnatural, that he should desire 
that the larger number of these days should 
be given to regions hallowed to him by as- 
sociations such as human memory had never 
before been entrusted with ? Or was it that, 
as Galilee had absorbed the largest share of 
his earthly labors, and had yielded to that 
labor the largest fruits, so it was there that 
the largest number of his disciples could be 
congregated, and that the quietest and se- 
curest opportunity of meeting with them 
could be had ? It was there, we know, that 
he met the five hundred brethren ; perhaps, 
it was there only that so many could have 
been collected, or, being collected, could have 
found a secluded and protected meeting- 
place. Whatever the motives were which 
prompted the Saviour to fix beforehand up- 


142 


THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 


on Galilee, and to announce it as his chosen 
trysting-place for meeting with the brethren 
at large, one can well enough see how desir- 
able it was that the apostles should be laid 
under the double obligation — -first, of going 
northward to Galilee, that they might share 
in the benefit of the most public of all 
Christ’s appearances after his resurrection; 
and, secondly , of returning to Jerusalem, as 
to the place in which the promise of the de- 
scent of the Spirit was to be fulfilled, and 
they were to be clothed with power from on 
high to execute their great mission upon the 
earth. Nearly two months were to elapse, 
ere that baptism of the Spirit was to be 
given. It might have been inconvenient or 
dangerous for them to have spent so long an 
interval idly, without occupation or means 
of support, in the metropolis. But neither 
were they to be suffered to return to their 
old Galilean haunts without an intimation 
being made to them, that it was in Jerusa- 
lem that their apostolic work was to make 
its auspicious commencement. It is not 


THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 


143 


likely that tlie apostles saw this at the time 
as we now see it, as they saw it afterwards 
themselves. "When they first left Jerusalem, 
they had perhaps no small difficulty in har- 
monizing the apparently conflicting instruc- 
tions which had been issued. One thing 
was very apparent, that their Master in- 
tended to show himself to them in Galilee ; 
and to Galilee, therefore, so soon as the Pass- 
over celebration was over, they retired. 

One evening some of them are together by 
the lake-side. Whether any of them had 
ever thought of resuming their old way of 
living, or had actually engaged in it, we do 
not know. All, however, is, this evening, so 
inviting; the lake looks so tempting; the 
night, the best time for the fisher’s craft, so 
promising ; their old boats and nets so ready 
to their hand — that one of them, the very 
one from whom we should have expected 
such a proposition to come (in whom the 
spirit of his old occupation should be the 
readiest to revive), Peter says to them, “ I 
go a fishing.” The others say, “We also go 


144 


THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 


with thee.” It was not a concerted meeting 
this by the lake-side. The proposal is evi- 
denty on the part of Peter a thought of the 
moment, and it is agreed to in the same 
quick spirit as that in which it is made. 
The meeting, the proposal, the acquiescence, 
all seem fortuitous, accidental. Yet was it 
not all foreseen, all pre-arranged? An un- 
seen eye follows these seven men as they 
embark, and watches them at their fishing 
toil ; even the eye of him who w r as waiting 
for them in the morning by the shore, by 
whose hand it was that the whole accidents 
of that night and morning were regulated. 
Even so let us believe, in regard to the most 
casual occurrences which happen still to the 
disciples of Jesus, that a providence as 
special and as gracious as that of which these 
seven men were the objects, is in them all, 
and over them all, causing them all to work 
together for their eternal good. Fitfully, 
curiously, without art or fixed design of 
ours, may the web of our destiny be woven, 
the threads thrown at random together, no 


THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 


145 


orderly pattern apparently coming out of 
their conjunction, and yet, of all that web 
there is not a single thread whose place, 
whose color, whose motion is not arranged 
with infinite skill, so as to mould our 
spiritual and eternal existence according to 
its predestined plan. As we recall and re- 
view the past, we may trace up to some 
trivial origin, some chance meeting, some ac- 
cidental conjunction of circumstances, our 
present position, our present habits, our 
present character. As we do so, we may be 
disposed to ascribe all to a blind fate ; but 
let this scene by the Galilean lake-side, and 
many other incidents of a like kind which 
the life of our Redeemer supplies, be the 
living proofs to us, that “chance also is 
the daughter of forethought,” that the min- 
utest details as well as the most momentous 
incidents of our earthly history, are all un- 
der the constant guidance of our Redeemer. 

The disciples toiled all night ; it was the 
time most favorable for their work. These 
seven men knew the lake well, every bay of 

Resurrection, *7 


146 


THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 


it where fisli were most likely to be taken ; 
and they were skilful at this craft. Yet, 
though they did their best, and toiled all 
through the watch of the night, they caught 
nothing. Two years before, Peter had once 
been out all night with as little success, but 
Peter had never seen so many practised 
hands in a single boat toiling so long, and 
toiling so fruitlessly. Had the remembrance 
of that other night of like fruitless labor 
been suggested to any of the seven? It 
would not seem that it had. The morning 
breaks upon the quiet lake, upon the wearied 
boatmen, and finds them within one hundred 
yards or so of the shore. There, upon the 
beach, a stranger stands ; stands as any in- 
habitant of the neighbourhood might have 
stood, who, having caught sight of the fish- 
ing-boat, and knowing how its occupants 
must throughout the night have been en- 
gaged, wanting to be one of the first pur- 
chasers from them of the fruit of their toil. 
One might have thought that the very sight 
at such an early horn’ of a solitary figure up- 


THE LAKE-SIDE OE GALILEE. 147 

on the shore, would have awakened curiosity 
in the hearts of the disciples, and that, as 
they had been frequently and distinctly 
told, it was here in Galilee they were to see 
their Master again, it might have occurred 
to them that it was Jesus. The very kind 
and form of the question put to them, u Chil- 
dren, have ye any meat ?” — a question which 
it appears much more clearly from the 
original than from our English version, was 
just the one which any stranger wishing to 
become a purchaser of their fish might have 
put — may have served rather to allay than 
to stimulate their curiosity. It is certain, at 
least, that they did not at first recognise 
him. Having got an answer to his question ; 
having been told that they had nothing in 
the boat, Jesus said to the exhausted and 
hopeless fishers of the night, “ Cast the net 
on the right side of the ship, and ye shall 
find.” They may have wondered for a mo- 
ment at an order of that kind being given ; 
they may have thought that the stranger 
had seen some indication of the presence of 


148 


THE LAKE-SIDE OE GALILEE. 


fish in that direction, which had escaped 
their eye. They may have had but little 
faith that the new cast of their net would be 
more successful than the many they had 
made before. But what the stranger directs 
can easily be done. They may try one last 
throw of their net before they land. They 
do so, and now at once they see that not 
without a reason had the order been given. 
Now, they find, that within the small enclo- 
sure which their net makes, such a multitude 
of fishes is embraced, that they have dif- 
ficulty in drawing it through the water to- 
wards the land. And now it is that love 
proves itself as quick of eye as it had already 
shown itself to be swift of foot. When 
Peter and John ran out to the sepulchre, 
John outstripped Peter in the race. He 
outstrips him also in the recognition. They 
are together in the boat ; a strange attrac- 
tion binds the gentlest to the most forward 
of the twelve ; and no sooner does it appear 
that the last cast of the net, taken in obedi- 
ence to the command of him who stands up- 


THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 


149 


on the shore, is not only successful, but suc- 
cessful to such an extraordinary degree, than 
the thought flashes into the mind of the be- 
loved disciple that it must be Jesus. “ It is 
the Lord,” whispered John to Peter. The 
Lord ! Thomas has. taught them the expres- 
sion; they begin to speak of him as the 
Lord. “ It is the Lord,” says John, and sat- 
isfies himself with saying so. And now once 
again the characteristic difference between 
the two men reveals itself: John the first to 
recognize; but Peter the first to act upon 
the recognition. At once believing that it 
is as John has said, Peter, leaving it to the 
others to drag the net to shore, flung himself 
into the water. It was but a short distance 
to the shore — about 200 cubits, 100 yards. 
He was quickly beside the stranger; al- 
though it does not appear from the narrative 
that he gained anything by his greater for- 
wardness of movement. 

It is soon evident that it was not the 
want of any supply out of their boat which 
had led Jesus to put to them the question, 


150 


THE LAKE-SIDE OE GALILEE. 


u Children, have ye any meat ?” On land- 
ing, tlie disciples find a fire of coals, and fisli 
already laid tliereon, and bread at band. 
Who gathered these coals? Who kindled 
that fire ? Whence came the fishes and the 
bread? Mysteriously provided, the ma- 
terials for the morning meal are there, quite 
independent of any supply which the last 
draught of the net may produce. But 
though all be ready for the weary and hun- 
gry fishermen, they must not leave their 
own proper work unfinished. As they 
gather in wonder around that fire to gaze on 
him who has furnished this fresh food for 
them, “ Bring,” said Jesus to them, “ of the 
fish which ye have now caught.” As if re- 
minded, by this order, of his having failed 
to take his proper part in the labour of 
dragging the net to shore, Peter is now the 
readiest to act upon this injunction. It is 
he who lands the net; and not till the 
fish taken in it have been secured and count- 
ed, does Jesus say to them, “ Come and 
dine.” He takes the bread and the fish, 


THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 


151 


breaks and divides them among the seven. 
Was the miracle of the mountain-side here, 
on a smaller scale, again enacted? Was 
there only food enough for one man there at 
first, and did that food multiply as he blessed 
(which we may assume he did) and parted 
it among them? This at least is certain, 
that he was known now not of Peter and 
John alone, but of the seven, in the breaking 
of the bread. They all know it is the Lord ; 
yet none of them durst ask him anything 
about himself, — a mysterious awe felt in his 
presence sealing their lips. It is in silence 
that this morning meal by the lake-side is 
partaken of. This, John says, was the third 
time that Jesus had showed himself; not 
literally the third time that he had showed 
himself to any one, but the third time that 
he had showed himself to the disciples col- 
lectively assembled in any considerable num- 
ber, after he had risen from the dead. 

It had been by a miraculous draught of 
fishes, like the one now before us, that, at the 
outset of liis ministry, Christ had drawn away 


152 


THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 


three at least of the seven now around him 
from their old occupations, and taught them 
to understand that in following him they 
were to become fishers of men. Why was 
that miracle repeated \ Because the lesson 
which it conveyed was needed to be again 
given and re-enforced. Had they been told 
at first to go to Galilee without the hint of 
a power to be given from on high, to be be- 
stowed at Jerusalem, they might have re- 
turned to their old neighborhoods, under the 
impression that they were to abide there 
permanently. And now that, bereft of the 
companionship of Christ, deprived of the 
means of support, if not driven by necessity 
yet tempted by opportunity, they resume 
their ancient calling, was it not needful and 
kind in Jesus to interfere, and, by the repe- 
tition of that miracle, whose symbolic mean- 
ing they could not fail at once to recognise, 
to teach them that their first apostolic call- 
ing still held good, that still the command 
was upon them, “Follow me, and I will 
make you fishers of men.” 


THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 153 


The two miracles, the one wrought at the 
beginning, the other at the close of the 
Lord’s ministry, were substantially the 
same. Regarded as symbols or mute pro- 
phecies, they carried the same significance. 
Yet there were differences between them, per- 
haps indicative that the one, the earlier mir- 
acle, was meant to shadow forth the first for- 
mation, the later miracle the future and final 
ingathering of the Church. In the first in- 
stance, Christ was himself in the vessel ; in 
the second, he stood upon the shore. In the 
first, the order was a more general one: 
“Launch out into the deep, and let down 
your nets for a draught.” In the second, a 
more specific one: “Cast the net on the 
right side of the ship.” In the first, the 
nets began to break, and the ship to sink ; 
in the second, nothing of the kind occurred. 
In the first, it was a great multitude of 
fishes that were enclosed, of all sizes, we 
may believe, and of all qualities. In the 
second, it was a limited number of great 
fishes which was drawn to land. It may be 


154 


THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 


a fancy — if so, however, it is one that many 
have had fond pleasure in indulging — to see 
in these diversities, the distinction between 
the present and visible effects of the casting 
forth of the gospel net upon the sands of 
time, and that landing and ingathering of 
the redeemed upon the shores of eternity. 
Treat this idea as we may — and great as are 
the authorities which have adopted it, I own 
to the disposition to regard it more as a 
happy illustration than a designed symbol, 
— the image is a scriptural one, that both 
individually with Christians, or collectively 
with the Church, the present scene of things 
is the night of toil, through whose watches, 
whether fruitful or not of immediate and 
apparent good, we have to labour on, in 
hope of a coming dawn, when upon the 
blessed shores we shall hail the sight of the 
risen Lord, and share with him in partaking 
of the provisions of a glorious immortality. 

The night is far spent ; that day is at hand. 
Let our toil then be one of hope, and our 
hope one full of immortality. And yet, 


THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 


155 


dark and often troubled tliougli it be, has 
not tliis night of our earthly sorrow shown 
us orbs of light we might never have seen 
by day ? What should we have known of 
the Saviour had it not been for our sin; 
what of his power to comfort, but for our 
present sorrow? He is, indeed, the great 
light of this dark world of ours. In his in- 
carnation we behold the earthly shining of 
this light. And what shall we say of his 
miracles, that long series of wonders done, 
of which this one by the lake-side was the 
closing one, but that they were the means 
taken by him for the fuller shining forth of 
that light which lighteth every man who 
cometh into this world? Of the first mir- 
acle it is said in Scripture, and the saying- 
may be applied to the last as to the first, to 
them all throughout, — “this beginning of 
miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and 
manifested forth his glory.” His glory as 
the Son of the Father, stands forth exhibited 
in these miracles, — there is a simplicity, an 
ease, a dignity in the very manner of their 


156 


THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 


performance, which distinguishes him from 
all other wonder workers. Moses must 
plead hard, and struggle long in prayer 
with God, ere Miriam is cleansed of her 
leprosy. Elijah and Elisha must stretch 
themselves upon the dead ere life comes 
hack again. Peter must say to the lame 
man at the Temple gate, “ In the name of 
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” 
These all act as servants in the name of 
Another, who permits them upon rare occa- 
sions, to speak in their Master’s name, and 
to use their Master’s power. But Christ, as 
a Son in his own house, speaks in his own 
name ; puts forth his own power. His 
language to a leper is, “I will, he thou 
clean he touches the hier, the hearers at 
the touch stand still ; he looks upon the life- 
less hody, and saith, “ Young man, I say 
unto thee, arise.” His word of power is 
heard in the recesses of the rocky sepulchre : 
“ Lazarus, come forth.” 

But chiefly the glory, not of power, hut 
of goodness, of love, was manifested forth in 


THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 157 


these miracles of Jesus. The miracles of 
Moses were miracles of awe and terror ; 
wrought in rivalry of the colossal powers of 
ancient heathenism, they were on a scale of 
amplitude befitting their design, their chief 
spheres external nature, the earth, the rock, 
the river, the ocean, and the sky. Around 
the miracles of Jesus, a milder, but richer 
glory gathers ; their chief sphere, the region 
of human life, man’s sins, man’s sorrows, 
man’s maladies, man’s wants. It is divine 
power acting as the servant of divine love, 
which meets to gladden our eye. Nor is it 
in these miracles alone of Jesus, that this 
love and power in blended action are to be 
beheld. It is not so much as outward evi- 
dences of the divinity of his mission, but 
still more as exhibitions and illustrations of 
his divine character, that we prize and love 
to study these miracles of our Lord; and 
their chief lesson is lost on us, if we fancy 
that it was then only when he was working 
them, that the divine power and the divine 
goodness that lay in him were acting. That 


158 


THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 


power and love were everywhere, and at all 
times going forth from him; and the only 
true believer in love and power divine, is he 
who sees them in every change of nature, in 
every work of providence, in every minis- 
tration of grace, and who never fancies that 
it is in the working of miracles alone that 
the great hand and power of the Omnipotent 
are to be beheld. The miracles are to be re- 
garded by us, not as stray specimens, rare 
and exclusive manifestations of that unseen 
Lord whom we adore, but as methods mere- 
ly which he has taken, suited to our igno- 
rance and to our indifference, to startle us 
into attention, to make visible to us that 
which ever lurks behind unseen, to quicken 
us to that faith which, when once rightly 
formed and exercised, shall teach us to see 
God in all things, and all things in God. 


VII. 


awl 

The repetition of the miraculous draught 
of fishes was nothing else than a symbolical 
renewal of the commission given originally 
to the apostles, intended to teach them that 
their first calling to be fishers of men still 
held good. There was one, however, of the 
seven for whose instruction that miracle was 
intended, whose position towards that apos- 
tolic commission was peculiar. He had 
taken a very prominent place among the 
twelve, had often acted as their representa- 
tive and spokesman. But on the night of 
the betrayal he had played a singularly 
shameful and inconsistent part. Vehement 
in his repeated assertion that though all 
men should forsake his Master he never 
would, though thrice warned, he had thrice 
over, with superfluous oaths, denied that 


* 


* John xxi. 15-23. 


( 150 ) 


160 


PETER AND JOHN. 


he ever knew or had anything to do with 
Jesus. How will it stand with Peter if that 
apostolic w'ork has to he taken up again? 
Has lie sufficiently repented of his sin? 
Will he not, in the depth of that humility 
and self-distrust which his great fall has 
taught him, shrink from placing himself on 
the same level with the rest ? Does Jesus 
mean that he should re-occupy the place 
from which, ky his transgression, he might 
be regarded as having fallen ? Singling him 
out when the morning meal by the lake-side 
w^as over, Jesus said to him, u Simon, son of 
Jonas, lovest thou me more than these, thy 
brethren, my other disciples, do ? ” What a 
skilful yet delicate method, without subject- 
ing him to the painful humiliation of having 
his former denials of his Master exposed and 
dw r elt upon, of testing and exhibiting the 
trueness and deepness of Peter’s repentance. 
Will he repeat the offence; wall he again 
compare himself w T ith the others; will he 
again set himself above them ; will he renew 
that boasting w hich w r as the sad precursor 


PETER AND JOHN. 


161 


of Ms fall? How touchingly does Ms an- 
swer show that he perfectly understood the 
involved reference to the past ; that he had 
thoroughly learned its humbling lessons. 
No longer any comparing himself with, or 
setting himself above others. He will not 
say that he loves Jesus more than they ; he 
will not say how much he loves. He will 
offer no testimony of his own as to the love 
he feels. He will trust his deceitful heart 
no more. But, throwing himself on an- 
other’s knowledge of that heart which had 
proved better than his own, he says: “Yea, 
Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.” 

Our Lord’s reply is a most emphatic 
affirmative response to this appeal. It is as 
if he had said at large : ‘ Yes, Simon Barjona, 
I do know that thou lovest me; I see too 
that thou wilt make no boast of thy love ; 
neither in that nor in anything else wilt 
thou set thyself above thy fellows ; by the 
pressure of this probe into thy throbbing 
heart it has been seen how true and deep 
thy penitence has been, how~ thoroughly it 


162 


PETER AND JOHN. 


lias done its work in humbling thee. And 
now, that thou, and these thy brethren, may 
know and see how readily I own and 
acknowledge thee as being to me all thou 
ever wert, I renew to thee this great com- 
mission; I reinstate thee in the apostolic 
office, — “ Feed my lambs ! ” ’ 

Peter was not asked a second time whether 
he loved more than others; but as three 
times he had been warned, and three times 
he had denied, so three times will Jesus 
reinstate, restore. Can we wonder that Peter 
was grieved when, for the third time, the 
general question, Lovest thou me, was put 
to him ? It was not the grief of doubt, as 
if he suspected that Jesus only half believed 
his word, but the grief of contrition, growing 
into a deeper sadness at the so distinct allu- 
sion to his three denials, in the triple repeti- 
tion of the question. With a sadder and 
fuller heart, in stronger words than ever, he 
makes the last avowal of his love : u Lord, 
thou knowest all things, thou knowest that 
I love thee.” 


PETER AND JOHN. 


163 


In the Greek tongue, the language in 
which this conversation between Christ and 
Peter is recorded, two different words are 
used for the one translated love, two differ- 
ent words for the one translated feed, , and 
two different words for the one translated 
sheep. We may believe that in that dialect 
of the Hebrew which was spoken by Christ, 
from which the Greek was itself a transla- 
tion (for we are to remember that only in 
one or two instances have the actual words 
spoken by Jesus been preserved), there was 
some way of making the same distinction of 
meaning which is expressed in the different 
words for love , and feed, and sheep. It would 
be quite out of place to go further here into 
such a topic. The result is that Jesus first 
asks Peter whether he cherishes to him a 
love, spiritual, holy, heavenly; that Peter 
declines using the term which his Master 
had employed, and contents himself with 
speaking of a kind of affection, simpler, more 
personal, more human ; that Jesus first com- 
mits the feeding of the lambs to Peter, then 


164 


PETER AND JOHH. 


tlie general guidance or oversight of the 
whole flock that he had purchased with his 
blood; and that finally he returns to the 
simple idea of feeding, as applied to this 
whole flock. 

Of more importance is it to notice (as sup- 
plying the room for this variety) the change 
of image from that of the fisher to that of 
the shepherd, as representing the apostolical 
or ministerial office. Had it been solely as 
fishers of men that Peter and his brethren 
had been described, as the business of the 
fisherman is to get the fish into the net, and 
draw them safe to land, so it might be 
thought that the one office of the spiritual 
fisherman was to bring sinners to Christ, to 
get them safe into his arms. A true yet 
contracted idea of the scope and bearing 
of the ministerial office might come thus to 
be entertained. It is very different when 
that office is presented to us under the idea 
of a pastorate. A much truer, because amp- 
ler conception of its manifold privileges, re- 
sponsibilities, means, duties, objects, is thus 


PETER AND JOHN. 


165 


acquired. Oversight, guidance, care, protec- 
tion, provision, these of the most varied 
kind, as adapted to all the conditions, ex- 
posures, wants, of all the separate members 
of the flock, are all embraced within the 
function of the shepherd. But let us not 
here fashion to ourselves a perfect ideal of 
what the spiritual shepherd is, or ought to 
be, and then imagine that each under-shep- 
herd of the great Christian flock is bound, in 
some degree, to realize, in his own person 
and his own work, each separate attribute, 
each separate mode or class of activities, 
which go to constitute the model that we 
have constructed. The work of the Chris- 
tian ministry was, in the apostolic age, al- 
most wholly evangelistic, aggressive. There 
was not the call or the opportunity then for 
the exercise of many of those gifts, which 
came afterwards to be consecrated to the 
cause of Christ, to the advancement of his 
kingdom. Yet, even then, there was no one 
fixed course, which all apostles, and all pres- 
byters, and all elders, and all deacons were 


166 


PETEE AND JOHN. 


alike called upon to follow. Had we the 
lives and labors of all the twelve apostles 
before us, I am persuaded that we should be 
as much struck with the diversity, as with 
the multiplicity of their operations. Very 
different, as, in a single instance, we shall 
presently see, were the characters, the dis- 
positions, the capabilities of the twelve men 
whom the Lord himself selected as the first 
propagators of his religion upon earth ; and 
room was found for all these differences act- 
ing themselves out in the different spheres 
of labor selected by, or assigned to them. 
So is it, so should it be still, in the labor of 
individual Christians, in the work of the 
Christian ministry. God has scattered among 
us a great variety of gifts, has set us where 
a great variety of services may be rendered. 
As there are many members in one body, 
yet all have not the same office ; so neither 
have all the true members of Christ’s mysti- 
cal body the same office to discharge. “ Let 
not the hand then say to the eye, I have no 
need of thee, nor the head to the foot, I have 


PETER AND JOHN. 


167 


no need of thee.” Let not those who are en- 
gaged in one kind of Christian work criticise 
or condemn those who are engaged in an- 
other. Let each of ns do the best we can 
with the kind and amount of the talent in- 
trusted to us ; let each of us try to do that 
which both naturally and immediately comes 
to our hand, not judging one another ; “ for 
who art thou who judgest another man’s 
servant ? to his own master he standeth or 
falleth,” but not to thee.' 

There is, however, one common, universal, 
indispensable qualification for all genuine 
Christian work — a supreme, a constraining 
love to Christ. Once, twice, thrice, is the 
question, “ Lovest thou me ?” put to Peter ; 
and once, twice, thrice, no sooner is an affir- 
mative reply given than the injunction fol- 
lows : 1 If thou lovest me, as thou lovest me, 
then feed my lambs, feed my sheep.’ And 
the first, the second, the third pre-requisite 
for all true feeding of the lambs, the sheep 
of the Saviour’s flock, is attachment to Him- 
self — a love to Jesus Christ running over 


168 


PETEE AND JOHN. 


upon all who, however weakly, do yet be- 
lieve in him. The want of that love, noth- 
ing can supply: not mere natural benevo- 
lence — that may lead its possessor to do 
much to promote the happiness of others, 
may win for him their gratitude and good- 
will, but will not teach him to labor directly 
and supremely for their spiritual, them eter- 
nal good ; not the mere sense of duty — that 
may secure diligence and faithfulness, but 
will leave the work done, under its exclusive 
promptings, sapless and dry — the element 
not there of a warm and tender sympathy, 
that best instrument of power. It is love- 
inspired, love-animated labor, which Jesus 
asks for at our hands. That we may be 
able, in any degree, to realize it, let it be our 
first desire and effort to quicken within our 
souls a love to him who first, and so won- 
derfully, loved us ; the flickering and languid 
flame in us, let us carry it anew, day by day, 
to the undying fire that burns in the bosom 
of our Redeemer, to have fresh fuel heaped 
upon it, to be rekindled, refreshed, sustained, 


PETER AND JOHN. 


169 


expanded. To know and "believe in tlie love 
that Christ has to ns, to feel ourselves indi- 
vidually the objects of that love, to open 
our hearts to all the hallowed influences 
which a realizing sense of that love is fitted 
to exert — this is the way to have our spirits 
stirred to that responsive affection to him, 
which gives to all Christian service purity 
and power. 

“Simon. Simon,” our Lord had said to 
Peter before his fall, “ Satan hath desired to 
sift thee as wheat, but I have prayed for 
thee that thy faith fail not ; and when thou 
art converted ” — converted, Jesus means here 
not in the ordinary sense of the term, but 
recovered, restored — “then strengthen thy 
brethren.” That strengthening of the breth- 
ren formed part of the shepherd’s office, now 
anew committed to Peter ; and what a lesson 
had he got in the treatment which he had 
himself received at the hands of the Chief 
Shepherd, as to how that office should be 
discharged ! The prayers, the warnings, the 
look of love, the angel’s message, the private 

Resurrection. 8 


170 


PETEK AND JOHN. 


interview, this conversation by the lake-side 
— these all told Peter of the thoughtfulness, 
the care, the kindness, the pitying sympathy, 
the forgiving love, of which he had been the 
object. Thus had he been treated by Jesus ; 
and let him go and deal with others as 
Christ had dealt with him. 

So far in what Christ had spoken, whilst 
there was much that was personal and pecu- 
liar to Peter, there was much also that had 
a wider bearing. But now the Lord has a 
word, which is for Peter’s ear alone. “ Whith- 
er I go ” (he had said to him in the upper 
chamber) “thou canst not follow me now, 
but thou shalt follow me afterwards and 
Peter had said in reply, “ Lord, why cannot 
I follow thee now \ I am ready to go with 
thee to prison, and to death; I will lay 
down my life for thy sake.” These words of 
the apostle, though sadly falsified the night 
when they were spoken, still were to hold 
good. Peter did follow his Master, even 
unto death. He did lay down his life for 
Jesus’ sake ; crucified, as his Lord had been. 


PETER AND JOHN. 


171 


Knowing this, and knowing that he needed 
all the encouragement which could be given 
him, to fortify him to meet the martyr’s 
doom, not only will Jesus in that private in- 
terview in the resurrection-day wipe all his 
tears away, and now in presence of his 
brethren reinstate him in his apostolic office, 
but he will do for him what he does for no 
other of the twelve — he will reveal the 
future so far as to let him know by what 
kind of death it should be that he should 
glorify God — to let him know that the op- 
portunity would be at last afforded him of 
making good the words which he too hastily 
and boastfully had spoken. “ Verily, verily, 
I say unto thee, when thou wast young thou 
girdest thyself, and walkedst whither thou 
wouldest ; but when thou shalt be old, thou 
shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another 
shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou 
wouldest not.” The explanatory clause which 
is introduced here, creates the impression 
that there had been a break or interruption 
of the discourse. From verse twentieth, it 


172 


PETEE AND JOHN. 


would appear, too, that Jesus had made some 
movement of withdrawal. These two cir- 
cumstances combine in inducing the idea, 
that when our Lord said to Peter, “ follow 
me,” he meant simply that he should go 
along with him as he now retired. If, how- 
ever, the words of the nineteenth verse were 
spoken in immediate connection with, and in 
continuation of what is recorded in the 
eighteenth, then, in saying u follow me,” our 
Lord might have had in his eye the very 
words of Peter about following him to 
prison and to death, and have meant, in 
using them, to say, 4 When thou shalt be 
old, and another shall seize upon thee and 
bind thee as they seized and bound thy 
Master in preparation for his crucifixion, 
then Peter, follow me, through the Cross to 
glory.’ 

It is very difficult, owing to the briefness 
of the gospel narrative, to picture to our eye 
the scene which followed. Did Jesus, as he 
said “ follow me,” arise to depart, and was 
Peter in the act of following when he turned 


PETER AND JOHN. 


173 


and saw John following also? Did John 
mistake so far the meaning of Christ’s word 
and act, as to consider himself equally with 
Peter called upon to follow ; or was it of his 
own motion, and without any real or im- 
agined invitation that he was acting ? How- 
ever it was, Peter, his mind full of the many 
thoughts that this pre-intimation of his death 
had excited, turns and sees John by his 
side. His own fate had been foretold ; what, 
he wondered, would be John’s. The be- 
loved disciple had once, at his suggestion, 
put a question to their Master about the 
others; now he will put a question about 
John — a question of natural and of brotherly 
curiosity, yet somewhat out of place. He 
has resumed too rapidly his old position, and 
his old hasty and forward ways. Jesus will 
not become a fortune-teller, to gratify even a 
friendly inquisitiveness. He puts a check 
upon the unbefitting inquiry, and yet, singu- 
larly enough, even in rebuking, he answers 
it. L “ If I will that he tarry, that he tany 
till I come, what is that to thee? follow 


174 


PETER AND JOHN. 


thou me.” Each man’s path, as each man’s 
duty, is separate and distinct. What the 
lot of another man may be, has nothing to 
do with the regulation of thine individual 
course. What is it to thee, Peter, whether 
John’s destiny shall be the same or different 
from thine ? The thing for thee to do is not 
to turn aside to busy thyself with his here- 
after, but to occupy thyself with the duty 
that lies immediately before thee to dis- 
charge. What is that to thee ? follow thou 
me.’ But if I will that he tarry till I come : 
Only imagine that Jesus was other than 
divine, and how arrogant the assumption 
here of his will regulating human destinies, 
fixing the time and the manner of his dis- 
ciples’ death ; Deity incarnate alone was en- 
titled to use such language : “ If I will that 
he tarry till I come.” When John wrote 
his Gospel, that saying of Jesus was not un- 
derstood. Some regarded it as implying 
that John should never die. The beloved 
disciple himself saw only so far into its 
meaning, that it contained no direct asser- 


PETER AND JOHN. 


175 


tion of tliat kind, but further be did not 
then see. Perhaps afterwards, when he saw 
all the apostles die out before, and witnessed, 
as only he did, the destruction of J erusalem, 
of which Christ had often spoken as identi- 
fied with his coming, — perhaps at that time, 
forty years after the meeting by the lake- 
side, he remembered the words that his 
Master had spoken, and wondered as he per- 
ceived how remarkably they were fulfilled. 

Next to the absence of all notice of our 
Lord’s mother, few things are more remarka- 
ble, in the narrative of the period after the 
resurrection, than the silence respecting 
John. One of the earliest visitants at the 
sepulchre, present at both the evening inter- 
views at Jerusalem, the disciple whom Jesus 
loved is neither spoken of nor spoken to. 
This is the only case in which he meets our 
eye, and he appears here rather in conjunc- 
tion with Peter than with Jesus. In the 
account of our Lord’s ministry, though John 
was frequently associated with Peter, it was 
as one of the two sons of Zebedee, the tie 


176 


PETER AND JOHN. 


to his brother James being then obviously a 
stronger one than that to Peter. But from 
the hour when the two entered together the 
hall of the High Priest, a singular attraction 
appears to have drawn these two men to- 
gether. The brotherly tie yields to one 
which has become still stronger, and instead 
of its being Peter and James and John, it is 
now Peter and John who are seen constantly 
in company with one another. This is all 
the more singular, when one considers how 
unlike the two were in natural character, in 
original disposition. 

John was born a lover of repose, of retire- 
ment. Left to himself, he would never have 
been an adventurous or ambitious man. 
Even in his very motion there had been 
rest. Had he never seen the Saviour, he 
would have remained quite contented in the 
occupation to which he had been brought 
up. To sit upon the sunny banks of that 
lovely inland lake mending his nets, his eye 
straying occasionally across its placid waters, 
or lifted to the blue expanse above; — to 


PETER AND JOHN. 


177 


take his accustomed seat in his fishing-boat, 
to launch out by night under these burning 
heavens, and sweep over the well-known 
haunts, would have been enough for him ; 
he neither would have desired nor sought 
for change. It may seem to militate against 
this idea of John’s character that he and his 
brother were called Boanerges, the Sons of 
Thunder. We are not told, however, the 
reason why this title was bestowed on them, 
— it may have been derived from something 
peculiar in the father rather than in the 
sons. Nor can we allow the bestowal of an 
unexplained and ambiguous epithet to out- 
weigh the whole drift and bearing of the 
gospel narrative, which speaks so much of 
the meekness and modesty and gentleness 
and retiringness of John. But let us not 
confound John’s yielding gentleness with that 
spirit of easy compliance which shuns all 
contest, because it does not feel that there is 
anything worth contending for. Beneath 
John’s calm and soft exterior there lay a 
hidden strength. In the mean, vulgar strife 


178 


PETER AND JOHN. 


of petty, earthly passions, J ohn might have 
yielded when Peter would have stood firm. 
But in more exciting scenes, under more 
formidable tests, John would have stood 
firm when Peter might have yielded. This 
was proved on the night of the arrest, and 
the day of the crucifixion. And there was 
latent heat as well as latent strength in 
John. As lightning lurks amid the warm, 
soft drops of the summer shower, so the 
force of a love-kindled zeal lurked in his 
gentle spirit. The Samaritans might a thou- 
sand times have refused to receive himself 
into their dwellings, and it had stirred no 
resentment in his breast ; but when they 
contemptuously refused to receive the Master 
to whom he was so ardently attached, it was 
more than he could endure. He joined his 
brother James in saying, “ Lord, wilt thou 
that we command fire to come down from 
heaven, and consume them ?”■ — a solitary 
outbreak of a sentiment but seldom felt, or 
if felt, habitually restrained ; yet that single 
flash reveals an inner region where all kinds 


PETER AND JOHN. 


179 


of vivid emotions lived and moved and liad 
tlieir being. 

Nor let us confound John’s simplicity 
with shallowness. If it be the pure in 
heart who see God, John’s was the eye to 
see farther into the highest of all regions 
than that of any of his fellows. If it be 
he that loveth who knoweth God — for God 
is love, John’s knowledge of God must have 
stood unrivalled. We reckon his as belong- 
ing to the highest order of intellect ; not 
analytical nor constructive ; the logical 
faculty, the reasoning powers, not largely 
developed ; but his quick bright eye of 
intuition, which, at a glance, sees farther 
into the heart of truth than by the stepping- 
stones of mere argumentation you can ever 
be conveyed. There were besides under 
that calm surface which the spirit of the 
beloved disciple displayed to the common 
eye of observation, profound and glorious 
depths. The writer of the Gospel and the 
Epistle is, let us remember, the writer also 
of the Apocalypse ; and if the Holy Spirit 


180 


PETEJS AND JOHN. 


chose the human vehicle best fitted for re- 
ceiving and transmitting the divine commu- 
nications, then to John we must assign not 
the pure deep love alone of a gentle heart, 
but the vision and the faculty divine, the 
high imaginative power. 

Peter, again, was born with the strongest 
constitutional tendency to a restless and ex- 
cited activity. He could not have endured 
a life of monotonous repose. He was a 
child of impulse ; he would have been a 
lover of adventure. He was not selfish 
enough to be a covetous, nor had he steadi- 
ness enough to be a successfully ambitious 
man ; but we can conceive of him as in- 
tensely excited for the time by any distinc- 
tion, or any honour placed within his reach. 
Had he never seen the Lord, one cannot 
think of him as remaining all his life a 
fisherman of Galilee; or, if the natural 
restraints of his position kept him there, 
even in that fisherman’s life he would have 
found the means of gratifying his constitu- 
tional biases. Eager, ardent, sanguine, it 


PETER AND JOHN. 


181 


needed but a spark to fall upon the inflam- 
mable material, and Ms whole soul kindled 
into a blaze, ready to burst along whatever 
path lay open at the time for its passage. 
The great natural defect in Peter was the 
want of steadiness, of a ruling, regulating 
principle to keep him moving along one 
line. Left to work at random, the excita- 
bility of such a susceptible spirit involved 
its possessor often in inconsistency, exposed 
him often to peril. We have, however, had 
this apostle so often before us, that we need 
not say more of Jiim. Enough has been 
said to bring out to your eye the strong 
contrast in natural character and disposition 
between him and John. Yet these were 
the two of all the twelve, who finally drew 
closest together. The day of Pentecost 
wrought a great change upon them both, 
and by doing so linked them in still closer 
bonds. The grace was given them which 
enabled each to struggle successfully with 
his own original defects, and to find in 
the other that which he most wanted. It 


182 


PETEE AND JOHN. 


is truly singular, in reading tlie earlier chap- 
ters of the Acts of the Apostles, to notice 
how close the coalition between Peter and 
John became. Peter and John go up to- 
gether to the temple. It is upon Peter and 
John that the lame man at the gate fixes 
his eye. After he was healed, it is said that 
he held Peter and John, as if they were 
inseparable. It was when they saw the 
boldness of Peter and John that the mem- 
bers of the Sanhedrim marvelled. And 
when they commanded them to speak no 
more in the name of Jesus, it is said that 
Peter and John answered and said, as if in 
very -voice as well as in action they were 
one — (Acts iii. 1, 3, 11 ; iv. 13, 19). 

Blessed fruit this of that all-conquering 
grace of God, which lifts Peter above the 
fear of reproach, and John above the love 
of ease; which brings the most timid and 
retiring of the twelve to the side of the 
most stirring, the most impetuous ; supply- 
ing a stimulus to the one — a regulator to 
the other ; bringing them into a union so 


PETER AND JOH 1ST. 


183 


near, and to both, so beneficial — John’s gen- 
tleness leaning upon Peter’s strength ; Pe- 
ter’s fervid zeal chastened by John’s pure, 
calm love. In the glorious company of the 
apostles, they shone together as a double 
star, in whose complemental light, love and 
zeal, labour and rest, action and contempla- 
tion, the working servant and the waiting 
virgin, are brought into beauteous harmony. 


yin. 




The very fact that among tliose who saw 
Christ upon the mountain side of Galilee, 
there were some who doubted, convinces us 
that more than the eleven must have been 
present at the interview. For after his re- 
peated appearances to them in Jerusalem, 
after his meeting with them, and eating with 
them, and showing them his hands and his 
side, and asking them to handle him, — that 
any of the eleven should at this after stage 
have doubted is scarcely credible. And 
our impression of the incredibility of this 
is deepened by reflecting that it was to a 
place, of his own appointment they now 
went, and that for the very purpose of see- 
ing and conversing with him once more. 
There are other and still weightier reasons, 

* Matt, xxviii. 16-20. 


( 184 ) 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


185 


wliicli leave no ground for doubt, that tbe 
appearance of tbe risen Saviour recorded 
by St. Matthew — tbe only one wbicb tbis 
evangelist does record, and to wbicb we may 
therefore conclude tbat a peculiar import- 
ance attached — was tbe same with tbat to 
wbicb St. Paul refers, when be says, “ After 
tbat be was seen of five hundred brethren 
at once, of whom tbe greater part remain 
unto tbis present, but some are fallen 
asleep.” 

It was tbe will of Christ to show himself 
alone after bis resurrection, once, and once 
only, to tbe whole collective body of bis 
disciples; to as many, at least, as could 
conveniently be congregated at one time, 
and in one place. It was in Galilee tbat 
tbis purpose could best be accomplished. 
There, and there only, could so many as five 
hundred of bis disciples be found, and 
brought safely together. After tbe ascen- 
sion,, when all assembled at Jerusalem tbat 
tbe city and its neighbourhood could sup- 
ply, tbe number of them gathered there was 


186 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


only one hundred and twenty. Hence, per- 
haps, one reason why, on the night before 
his death, and on the morning of his resur- 
rection, the apostles were so repeatedly and 
emphatically told by Christ himself, and 
through the commissioned angel, that he 
went before them into Galilee, and it was 
to be there that they were to see him. 
Their attention was thus fixed beforehand 
upon an interview at which the most public 
and impressive manifestation of their risen 
Lord was to be made. 

The necessity of the case required that 
both time and place should be named before- 
hand, fixed by our Lord himself, by him 
communicated to the apostles, by them an- 
nounced to others ; the tidings conveyed 
abroad over Galilee, wherever disciples of 
Jesus were to be found. One can imagine 
what intense curiosity, what longing desire 
to be present at such an interview, would 
be kindled wherever the intelligence was 
carried. In due time the day appointed 
dawns. On towards the indicated moun- 


THE GEEAT COMMISSION. 187 

tain side, group after group is eagerly press- 
ing; — tire solitary one from some far-off 
liamlet, tlie one of Iris family that lias been 
taken while the others were left, mingling 
with the larger companies that Capernaum 
and Bethsaida send forth. All are gathered 
now. From knot to knot of old Galilean 
friends, the apostles pass, assuring them that 
this is indeed the day and the place the 
Lord himself had named ; and giving a still 
quicker edge to the already keen enough 
curiosity, by telling of the strange things 
they had so lately seen and heard at Jerusa- 
lem. 

What new thoughts about the Crucified 
would be stirring then in many a breast ! 
A prophet, all of them had taken him to 
be; but if all be true that they now are 
hearing, he must be more than a prophet ; 
for which one of all their prophets ever 
burst the barriers of the grave ? The Mes- 
siah, many of them had taken him to be ; 
but now, if they are to retain that faith, 
their former notions of who and what the 


188 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


Messiah was to be, must be greatly changed. 
A Messiah reaching his throne through suf- 
fering and death, is an idea quite new to 
them. They ask about his late appearances, 
and are lost in wonder as they hear how 
few they have been, how short ; at what a 
distance, even from the eleven, the risen 
Jesus had kept ; what a studied reserve 
there had been in his intercourse with them, 
so different from his old familiarity. He is, 
he must be, a Being other — far higher — 
than they had fancied him to be. Is it 
really true what they had heard himself 
say, but had not fully understood, that he 
was the Son of, the equal of the Father — 
God incarnate \ Thomas tells them that he 
fully believes so. The other apostles tell 
them that he has opened their minds through 
a new interpretation of the prophecies to 
quite different notions about himself and 
his kingdom from anything they had hitherto 
entertained. In what a very singular condi- 
tion of thought and feeling, as they try to 
realize it, must that company of five hun- 


THE GEEAT COMMISSION. 


189 


dred brethren have been, which collected 
on the mountain side, and stood awaiting 
Christ’s coming '( 

At last the Lord appears : we know not 
how ; whether bursting at once on their 
astonished vision, without shadow of ap- 
proaching form or sound of advancing foot- 
step, seen standing in the midst ; or whether 
seen at first far off, alone in the distance, 
silently watched, as treading the mountain 
side he drew nearer and nearer to them, till 
at last he was by their side. However he 
came, when they saw him, we are told they 
worshipped : — with clasped hands, or on 
bended knee ; some, like Thomas, with pro- 
found and intelligent adoration ; others with 
a worship, heightened by wonder, somewhat 
vague, but pure as the mountain air they 
breathed. But some doubted — those who 
saw him now for the first time after his 
resurrection. Here, as in almost every first 
interview of the kind, there was a doubt, 
one speedily dispelled, whose natural source 
we have already attempted to indicate. 


190 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


“ And Jesus came and spake to them, 
saying, All power is given to me in heaven 
and in earth.” To whatever height of con- 
ception and belief the men of that company 
may have been rising, upon whose ears these 
words fell, as Christ’s greeting to them in 
the first, the only interview they were to 
have with him after his resurrection, we 
may be assured that they went much beyond 
what they ever expected to hear coming 
from those lips. Already they had wor- 
shipped, gazing in wonder on him, as one 
who had come to them from the dead. But 
what fresh subject for wonder now; what 
higher reason for worship now ? Power 
they knew him to possess ; power over 
earth, and air, and water ; power over the 
spirits of all flesh ; power even over the 
demons of darkness. Power enough they 
had attributed to him to set up an earthly 
kingdom in front of all opposition, to crush 
all its enemies under his feet. Such power 
they were prepared to hear him claim, and 
see him exercise. But they were not pre- 


THE GKEAT COMMISSION. 


191 


pared to hear him say, “ All power is given 
to me in heaven and in earth.” Far above 
all their former thoughts of him does J esus 
thus ascend, and, by ascending, try to lead 
them up. It has been already suggested, 
that one part of Christ’s design in dwelling 
for these forty days on earth, and in the 
mode of conduct to his disciples which he 
pursued, was gradually to lift their minds 
from lower and unworthier thoughts of him 
to a true conception of his divine dignity 
and power ; and it confirms our belief in 
this to find that in the greatest, the most 
public, the most solemn manifestation of 
himself which Christ at that time made, his 
first declaration to the assembled five hun- 
dred was, “ All power is given to me in 
heaven and in earth !” 

When first uttered, how many eyes were 
fixed in wonder upon the man who spake 
these words ! Eighteen hundred years have 
gone past since then ; millions upon millions 
of the human family have had these words 
repeated to them, as spoken by the Son of 


192 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


Mary ; have regarded them as honestly and 
truly spoken ; as expressing but a simple 
fact. How could this have been ? How 
could a man of woman born, who had lived 
and died as we do, have been regarded as 
other than the vainest, most arrogant of 
pretenders, who said that all power in heaven 
and in earth was his, had there not been 
something in the whole earthly history of 
this man which corresponded with and bore 
out such an extraordinary assumption % And 
even such were the life and death of Jesus 
of Nazareth. They have now been for cen- 
turies before the world, as the life and death 
of one who claimed to be the eternal Son of 
God, the equal of the Father ; of one who 
said that as the Father knew him, so knew 
he the Father ; of one who said that what- 
soever things the Father did, the same did 
the Son likewise; that the Father had de- 
livered all things into his hand; that all 
power was his in heaven and in earth. And 
no one has ever been able to show anything 
in the character, the sayings, the doings of 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 193 

Jesus Christ, inconsistent with such extraor- 
dinary pretensions ; all is harmony with the 
claim, all goes to sanction and sustain it. 
It seems to us that the simple fact that 
there was a Man who lived for three-and- 
thirty years in familial' intercourse with his 
. fellow-men, who yet, before he left the world, 
was recognised and worshipped by five hun- 
dred of his fellow-men as one who was guilty 
of no presumption in saying, a All power is 
given me in heaven and in earth and who, 
since that time, has been believed in by 
such multitudes as God incarnate, goes far, 
of itself, to sustain the belief that he was 
indeed the Son of the Highest, and that it 
was no robbery with him to count himself 
equal with God ; for, only imagine that he 
was no more than he seemed to be, a Jew, 
the son of a Galilean carpenter, educated in 
a village in the rudest part of Judea, — that 
such a man, being a man and no more, could 
have lived so long upon the earth without 
saying or doing anything which could belie 
the idea that in him dwelt all the fulness of 
9 


Resurrection. 


194 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


the Godhead bodily, appears to us to pre- 
sent far greater difficulties to faith than does 
the doctrine of the Incarnation. 

It is not so much, however, as one pos- 
sessed of it by original and native right, 
that Jesus lays claim here to supreme and 
unlimited power. He speaks of the “ all 
power in heaven and in earth ” as “ given,” 
— given by another ; by Him whose law he 
had so magnified, whose character he had so 
glorified in his life and by his death. It 
was as the fruit and reward of his obedi- 
ence unto death that he was invested by the 
Father with unlimited authority and power. 
One of the conditions of the everlasting 
Covenant was that, crucified in weakness, 
Christ should be raised in power ; that, on 
account of bis having suffered unto death, 
he should be crowned with glory and honour. 
And his first word to this company on the 
mountain side is the first announcement 
from his own lips, that, his great decease 
having been accomplished, this condition of 
the covenant had been fulfilled; that he 


THE GKEAT COMMISSION". 


195 


liad entered upon possession of the media- 
torial sovereignty. Constituted heir of all 
things, the great inheritance had to be ac- 
quired, the kingdom won. The heir still 
lingers for a season upon earth, but he is^pn 
his way to the throne on which he is to sit 
down, covered with glory and honour, angels 
and principalities and powers being made 
subject to him. Jesus indeed speaks here 
as if he were already upon that throne. As 
in the upper chamber, when the agony of 
the garden and the sufferings of the cross 
still lay before him, he spake as if the pas- 
sion were over, as if heaven had been already 
entered, saying, “ I have glorified thee on 
the earth, I have finished the work which 
thou gavest me to do. Father, I will that 
those whom thou hast given me be with me 
where I am so here, on the mountain side, 
he speaks as if the cloud had already carried 
him away, — as if his feet were already 
standing within the throne of universal 
sovereignty, — as if, having raised him by 
his mighty power from the dead, the Father 


196 


THE GEEAT COMMISSION. 


Lad already set him on his own right hand 
in the heavenly places, far above all princi- 
pality and power, and might and dominion, 
and every name that is named, not only in 
this world, but also in that which is to 
come ; had put all things under his feet, and 
given him to be Head over all to the Church, 
which is his body, the fullness of him that 
filleth all in all. 

It is from the lofty elevation thus attained, 
it is as clothed with the supreme, limitless 
authority and power thus acquired, that 
Jesus issues the great commission to the 
Church, Go ye therefore and teach or make 
disciples of all nations ; or as you have it 
in another evangelist, Go, preach the gospel 
to every creature. A mission so comprehen- 
sive was as novel as it was sublime. Famili- 
arity with the idea blunts the edge of our 
wonder, but let us recollect that at the time 
when, in a remote Jewish province, gather- 
ing a few hundred followers around him, 
Jesus sent them forth, assigning to them a 
ta§k which should not be accomplished till 


THE GEEAT COMMISSION. 


197 


every creature had heard the glad tidings 
of salvation in his name, and all nations had 
been brought to sit under his shadow, — that 
at that time the very idea of a religion 
equally addressed to, and equally adapted 
to all nations, equally needed by, and equally 
suited to every child of Adam, was wholly 
new, had never been broached, never been 
attempted to be realized. There was no 
form or system of idolatry that ever aimed 
at, or was indeed capable of such universali- 
ty of embrace. The object of its worship 
was either confined to certain definite locali- 
ties ; the gods of certain mountains, groves, 
or streams, whose worship was incapable of 
transfer; or they were the offspring and 
expression of some peculiar state of society, 
whether savage or civilized, suited only to 
that particular state or condition of humani- 
ty in which they had their birth and being. 
It is true that in all the more educated 
nations of antiquity, there were men wdio 
soared far above the vulgar prejudices and 
superstitions of their times, whose religion, 


198 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


such as it was, had certainly nothing about 
it of that confinement by which the popular 
belief and worship were characterized ; but 
if free thus from one kind of confinement, 
their religion was all the more liable to 
another. Unfitted for the many, it was by 
eminence the religion of the few. Its disci- 
ples gloried in its exclusiveness. It would 
have lost half its charm in their eyes, had 
the people at large adopted it. But there 
was no danger of that. It was essentially 
unfitted for the multitude. Its votaries 
would have laughed at the idea of trying 
to convert even a single village to their 
faith. Such, in the days of Jesus Christ, 
in all heathen countries, were the multiform 
idolatries of the many, the exclusive faith 
of the few. In Judea, it was somewhat 
different. Sacred books were circulating 
there, in which, under dark prophetic sym- 
bols, hints were given of a future gathering 
of all the nations under one great king and 
head. But these hints were universally mis- 
understood and misapplied. Amid all the 


THE GEEAT COMMISSION. 


199 


confined and exclusive religions of that 
period, there was not one more confined, or 
more exclusive, than Judaism. Both soci- 
ally and religiously, the Jew of the Saviour’s 
time was one of the most shut up and 
bigoted of the race. Everything about him, 
— his dress, his food, his domestic customs, 
his religious ceremonies, — marked him off 
by a broad wall of separation from the rest 
of the species. He gloried in this distinc- 
tion. He thought and spoke of himself 
and his brethren as the elect of God, the 
holy, the clean : the Gentiles were the dogs, 
the polluted, the unclean. His attachment 
to his religion, as a faith proclaimed exclu- 
sively to his forefathers, and bequeathed by 
them as a national heritage to their children, 
was intense. His faith and his patriotism 
were one, and the deeper the patriotism 
the narrower the faith. And yet it is among 
this people ; it is from one who was brought 
up in one of its wildest districts ; it is from 
one for whom birth, position, education, had 
done nothing in the way of weaning him 


200 


THE GEEAT COMMISSION. 


from the common prejudices of his country- 
men, making him in that respect different 
from any other Jew ; it is from one who, 
save occasional visits to Jerusalem, never 
moved beyond the neighbourhood of a Gali- 
lean village, nor shared in the benefits of 
any other society than it supplied; — it is 
from him that a religion emanates whose 
professed object is to gather into one, within 
its all-embracing arms, the whole human 
family. The very broaching of a project so 
original, so comprehensive, so sublime, at 
that time and in those circumstances, stands 
out as an event unique in the history of our 
race. In vain shall we try to explain it on 
the supposition that it was the self-suggested 
scheme of the son of a Galilean tradesman. 
The very time and manner of its earthly 
birth claims for it a heavenly origin. Had 
Jesus Christ done nothing more than this, 
— set the idea for the first time afioat, that 
it was desirable and practicable to frame 
for the world a religious faith and worship 
which should have nothing of the confine- 


THE GEEAT COMMISSION. 


201 


ments of country, or period, or caste, but 
be alike adapted to all countries, all periods, 
all kinds and classes of men, — be would 
liave stood by himself and above all others. 

But he did more than this. He not only 
announced the project, but he devised the 
instrument by which it was to be accom- 
plished ; he put that instrument in its com- 
plete and perfect form into the hands of 
those by whom it was to be employed. 
Study the history of all other revolutions, 
civil or religious, which have taken plac^^* 
upon this earth, and you will find it to be ' 
true of all of them, that the methods by 
which they were wrought out, were at first 
devised by different men and at lengthened 
intervals, and afterwards perfected by slow 
degrees. The men engaged in effecting 
them had to feel their way forward ; had 
often to retrace their steps ; had often to 
cast aside an old instrument because it was 
found to be useless, or because a new and 
better one had been fallen upon in its stead. 

It has not been so with the establishment 
9 * 


202 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


and propagation upon the earth of the reli- 
gion of Jesus Christ. The instrumentality 
employed here has been the same from the 
beginning. It has never ashed for, because 
it never needed, improvement or change. 
We have it now in our hands in the same 
form in which it was put by Christ himself 
into the hands of the first disciples of the 
faith. The experience of so many centuries 
has detected no flaw, revealed no weakness, 
provided no substitute. When Jesus said. 
Go, make disciples of all nations, he an- 
nounced, — and that in the simplest, least 
ostentatious way, as if there were no novelty 
in the project, no difficulty in its execution, 
as if it were the most natural thing in the 
world that it should be taken up, as if it 
were the surest thing that it could be car- 
ried out, — he announced the most original, 
the broadest, the sublimest enterprise that 
ever human hands have been called upon 
to accomplish. And when he said, Go, 
preach the gospel to every creature, he sup- 
plied, in its complete and perfect form, the 


THE GEEAT COMMISSION. 


203 


instrument by wliicli it was to be realized. 
And that simple gospel of the grace of God, 
preached, proclaimed, made known among 
all nations, to every creature, has it not 
proved itself fitted for the work ? No na- 
tion can claim this gospel as peculiarly its 
own. No class or kind of human beings 
can appropriate it to themselves. It speaks 
with the same voice, it addresses the same 
message to the wandering savage and to the 
civilized citizen, to the most abandoned re- 
probate and to the most correct and fas- 
tidious moralist. Its immediate and direct 
appeal is to the naked human conscience, 
to man as a sinner before his Maker. Wholly 
overlooking and ignoring all other distinc- 
tions of character and condition, it regards 
us all as on the common level of condemna- 
tion, under the sentence of that law which 
is holy and just and good. To each of us, 
as righteously condemned, it offers a free, 
full pardon through the death, an immediate 
and entire acceptance through the merits and 
mediation, of Jesus Christ. It presents the 


204 


THE GKEAT COMMISSION. 


means and influences by wbicb a holy char- 
acter and life may be attained on earth, and 
it opens up the way to a blissful immortality 
hereafter. If, looking simply at the out- 
ward means employed, we were asked where- 
in lay the secret of the immediate and im- 
mense power which the Christian religion 
at first exerted upon such multitudes of 
men, we should say that it was in the call 
it carried with it to every man, just as it 
found him, to repent, and repenting, enter 
into immediate peace with his Maker through 
Jesus Christ ; in the assurance that it gave 
of God’s perfect good-will to him, his per- 
fect readiness to forgive and accept ; the 
proclamation which it made that, by Christ’s 
death, every let or hindrance had been re- 
moved, and that every sinful child of 
Adam was invited to enter into that rest 
which Christ had provided for all who came 
to him. Only think, when these tidings 
were new, and when they were at once 
heartily and cordially believed in, what a 
wonderful revolution in man’s inner being 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


205 


they were fitted to effect ! Can you wonder 
when, to a world grown weary of its follies, 
its idolatries, its philosophies, its gropings 
in the dark, its struggles to find the truth, 
its passionate desire to know something of 
that world beyond the grave, for the first 
time it was told that God was not a God 
afar off but very near at hand, for he had 
sent his own Son into the world to make 
such a revelation of him that it could be 
said, Whosoever had seen him had seen the 
Father also ; — it was told that a life beyond 
the grave was no longer a matter of specu- 
lation, for Christ, the Son of the Eternal, 
had risen as the first-fruits of a coming gen- 
eral resurrection of the dead ; — it was told 
that access to God and to God’s full favour 
was no longer a thing of doubt and time 
and difficulty, — to be reached, if reached at 
all, through prayer and priests, and services 
and sacrifices, — for a new and direct and 
open way had been revealed by God him- 
self, through which any one might step at 
once into his gracious presence, into the full 


206 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


light of his reconciled countenance ; — it was 
told that the forgiveness of all his past sin 
was no longer a matter about which, to the 
last moment of his life, a man was to be 
kept hanging between hope and fear, for 
through this man Christ Jesus there was 
offered to all who would accept it, an instant 
remission of all his sins ; — it was told that 
poor, weak, tempted, erring, sinful, suffering 
man had no longer to regard himself as an 
alien, an exile from the world of the pure 
and the blessed, frowned on by the beings, 
the powers, he worshipped, his whole life 
turned into a struggle by one or other kind 
of propitiatory offerings to keep on some- 
thing like good terms with his conscience 
and his God, for there was One who had 
loved and suffered and died to save him ; 
a man like himself, and yet a God ; a man 
to pity, a God to protect ; a man to sympa- 
thize, a God to succour; whose presence, 
companionship, friendship, were waiting to 
cheer his path in life, and illumine for him 
the dark valley of the shadow of death ; — 


THE GEEAT COMMISSION. 


207 


can you wonder that when, in all its sim- 
plicity and in all its fulness of comfort and 
consolation, the gospel of the grace of God 
was first proclaimed to sinful men, it was 
hailed by thousands as indeed glad tidings 
from the far ■ countiy ? Or, looking at the 
Scripture records, can you wonder that the 
three thousand who were converted on the 
day of Pentecost, as they broke bread from 
house to house did eat their meat with such 
gladness and singleness of heart, praising 
God ? Can you wonder, when with one ac- 
cord the people of Samaria gave heed to 
the things spoken by Philip, preaching peace 
by Jesus Christ, that there was great joy in 
that city ? Can you wonder, when the 
Ethiopian treasurer had his eyes opened to 
see who it was who had been wounded for 
his transgressions and bruised for his iniqui- 
ties, and found in Jesus the very Saviour 
that he needed, that he went on his way 
rejoicing ? Can you wonder, when at An- 
tioch and elsewhere the Gentiles heard for 
the first time all the words of this life, that 


208 


THE GEEAT COMMISSION. 


“ they were glad, and glorified the word of 
the Lord ?” Many and great indeed were 
the hindrances which arose : slow often and 
difficult the progress that was made. But 
the way in which these hindrances generally 
acted, was to cloud with some obscurity the 
simple tidings of the love of God in Christ 
to sinful men ; to close the door that his 
grace had opened ; to fetter with this condi- 
tion or with that, the fall reconciliation with 
our Maker into which we are all invited at 
once to enter ; more or less, in fact, to assimi- 
late the religion of Jesus to all the other 
religions which have represented God’s fa- 
vour as a thing to be toiled for through life, 
and to be won, if won at all, only at its 
close, — the life itself to be passed in a sus- 
tained uncertainty as to wffiether it would 
be got at last or not, — whereas it is the 
distinction and the glory and the power of 
the gospel of the grace of God, that it holds 
out to us at the very first, as a gratuity, 
which it has cost Christ much to purchase, 
but which it costs us nothing to acquire, — 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


209 


the forgiving, loving favour of the Mnst 
High. It asks us to dismiss here all our 
doubts and fears ; to know and believe the 
love which God has to us ; to see in Jesus 
one in whom we can undoubtingly confide, 
who is absolutely to be depended on, in 
whom it is impossible that too much confi- 
dence can be reposed ; who by every way that 
love could devise, or the spirit of self-sacri- 
fice achieve, has tried to get us to trust alone, 
unhesitatingly, habitually, for ever in him. 

What is it — how often do we ask these 
hearts of ours — what is it that keeps us 
from welcoming such glad tidings \ What 
is it which keeps these tidings from filling 
our hearts with a full and continued joy ? 
What is it which keeps us from trusting one 
so entirely worthy of our confidence as J esus 
Christ ? Nothing whatever in the tidings ; 
nothing in Him of whom the tidings speak. 

Try if you can construct any form of 
words better fitted than those which meet 
you in the Bible, clearly and forcibly to 
express the idea that God is now in Jesus 


210 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


Christ most thoroughly prepared, is most 
entirely willing, to receive at once into his 
favour every repentant, returning child of 
Adam, and that there is not a single man 
anywhere, or upon any ground, shut out 
from coming and accepting this pardon — 
coming and entering into this peace. “ Ho ! 
every one that thirsteth, come ye to the 
waters. If any man thirst, let him come to 
me and drink. Come unto me, all ye that 
are weary and heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest. God so loved the world, as to 
give his only-begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in him might not perish, but have 
everlasting life. The Spirit and the Bride 
say, Come. And let him that heareth say, 
Come. And let him that is athirst come. 
And whosoever will, let him take the water 
of life freely.” Any one — every one — all — 
whosoever ; we know no other words which 
could more thoroughly take in all, excluding 
none. These, however, are but words. The 
great thing is to get fixed in the mind and 
heart that which these words point to and 


THE GEEAT COMMISSION. 


211 


express ; tliat the God whom we have 
offended approaches ns in love, in Christ, 
assuring ns of a gracious reception ; the em- 
brace of a Father’s guiding, protecting arms, 
and the shelter hereafter of a Father’s secure 
and blessed home. 

“ Baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost.” Our Lord’s forerunner had adopted 
the practice of baptizing those who desired 
to be regarded as his followers. His bap- 
tism, however, was prefigurative and incom- 
plete. It was simply a baptism unto repent- 
ance. It was a faith only in the kingdom 
as at hand that was required of those who 
submitted to it. But the kingdom had 
come. The day of Pentecost, on which it 
was to be visibly erected, was drawing near. 
Another higher and fuller baptism was now 
to be proclaimed, and then begin to be 
administered. 

Baptizing into the name, not simply in 
the name, of the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost ; that might mean no more 


212 


THE GEEAT COMMISSION. 


tlian performing tlie rite in tlie name, that 
is, by the authority of God. The name of 
God, we know, is the term commonly em- 
ployed in Scripture to indicate the character 
and the nature of the Supreme. When the 
expression meets us, then — the name of the 
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost — we 
understand it as expressive of the one nature 
revealed to us in the three personalities of 
the Triune Jehovah. Now to be baptized 
into that name is to be taken up into, to be 
incorporated with him whose name is Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost. The term is expres- 
sive or symbolic, not of a mere outward and 
formal acknowledgment or confession of our 
faith in the Divinity, as he has been pleased 
to reveal himself to us under that mysteri- 
ous distinction of a threefold personality ; 
but of an inward and spiritual union, com- 
munion, fellowship, with the Father, the 
Son, the Holy Ghost. The Israelites were 
all baptized unto Moses, and, as so baptized, 
were taken up into, and incorporated with, 
that spiritual community of which the Mo- 


THE GEEAT COMMISSION. 


213 


saic was an external type. They did all 
eat the same spiritual meat, and did all 
drink the same spiritual drink ; derived all 
their strength and refreshment from the 
same spiritual sources. And even so are 
all baptized into the name of the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Ghost, emblematic 
of that oneness with each and all of the 
three Persons of the Trinity, which the 
Saviour had in his eye, when he prayed for 
his own, “ That they all may be one ; as 
thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that 
they also may be one in us.” And that 
same oneness through Christ with the Father 
and the Holy Ghost, is it not equally if not 
still more distinctly and impressively held 
out to our view in the sacrament of the 
Supper ? “ The cup of blessing which we 

bless, is it not the communion or common 
participation of the blood of Christ % The 
bread which we break, is it not the commu- 
nion or common participation of the body 
of Christ ? For we, being many, are one 
bread and one body ; for we are all partak- 


214 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


ers of that one bread.” Closest, loftiest, 
most blessed of all fellowships, that to 
which in Jesus Christ we are elevated, and 
of which our participation of the two sacra- 
ments of the Church is the external sign.* 
“Teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I have commanded you.” The 
crowning glory of the gospel — of its procla- 
mation of a free and full justification before 
God, alone through the merits of the Saviour 
— is this, that it opens the way and supplies 
the motive to a right and dutiful discharge 
of all commanded duty. Enthroning Christ 
in the heart, planting deep within it, as its 
strongest and most constraining motive, a 
supreme love to him, it produces an obedi- 
ence which springs not from fear, but from 
love. “ If ye love me,” said Jesus to his 
disciples, “ keep my commandments.” He 
did not question or suspect the reality of 
their love. He knew there was a kind of 
love they all had to him. But that affection, 

* For additional remarks on the two Sacraments, see Appen- 
dix C. 


THE GKEAT COMMISSION. 


215 


tender as it was, might not be strong ; 
regarding him mainly in the character of a 
companion or Mend, it might fail to recog- 
nise him in the character of their Master, 
their Lord. 4 If ye indeed love me, then,’ 
says Jesus, to them and to us, 4 let not love 
die out in the mere feeling of attachment to 
my person ; let it find its becoming and 
appropriate expression in the keeping of my 
commandments ; so shall it be preserved 
from evaporating in the emotion of the 
hour; so shall it be consolidated into a 
fixed, a strong, a permanent principle of 
action.’ All love, even that of equal to 
equal, if unexpressed, if unembodied, has a 
strong tendency to decline; but if it be 
love of a dependent to a superior, of a ser- 
vant to a master, the love which does not 
clothe itself in obedience, becomes spurious 
as well as weak. A bare acknowledgment 
in words, or in some formal act of bare pro- 
fession of the fatherly or masterly relation- 
ship, — what is it worth if the authority of 
the father be disregarded, the orders of the 


216 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


master be disobeyed ? If we fail to regard 
Christ as the Lord of the conscience, the 
lawgiver of the life ; if our obligations to 
be all and do all he has commanded be un- 
felt ; if the love we cherish to him go not 
forth into action, — such barren and unfruit- 
ful affection will not be recognised by him, 
who hath not only said, “ If ye love me, ye 
will keep my commandments,” but also, 
“ lie that hath my commandments and keep- 
eth them, he it is that loveth me.” On the 
other hand, if our love to Christ, however 
faint and feeble it be at the first, has not 
only an eye to see him and admire his 
beauty, but an ear to hear him and obey 
his word ; if under the strong conviction 
that to offer love without service to such a 
Saviour as Jesus is, would be but another 
variety of that mockery to which he was 
subjected in the judgment-hall of Pilate; 
if the sincere and honest effort be put forth 
to obey the precepts he has given for the 
regulation of our heart and life, — then shall 
each fresh effort of that kind, however short 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 217 

it fall of its destined aim, exert the happiest 
influence upon the love from which it 
springs, quickening, expanding, elevating, 
intensifying it. Each new attempt to do 
his will shall reveal something more of the 
loveableness of the Redeemer’s character. 
The loving and the doing shall help each 
other on, till the loving shall make the 
doing light ; and by the doing shall the 
loving be itself made perfect. 

And one marked peculiarity of the obedi- 
ence thus realized shall be this, that all 
things whatsoever Christ hath commanded 
will be attempted, at least, if not discharged. 
“ Ye are my friends,” said Jesus, “ if ye do 
whatsoever I command you a test of 
friendship very sad and hopeless in the 
application of it, were it meant that whatso- 
ever Christ has commanded must be done, 
up to the full measure and extent of his 
requirement, before we could be reckoned 
as his friends. Then were that friendship 
put altogether beyond our reach. A test, 
however, both true, and capable of imme- 
10 


Resurrection. 


218 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


diate and universal application, if we regard 
it as meaning that it is by the universality 
of its embrace, and not by its perfection in 
any one individual instance, that the obedi- 
ence of the Christian is characterized ; that 
there shall not be" one command which is 
freely, wilfully, and habitually violated; 
not one known duty which is not habitually 
tried to be discharged. As ever then we 
hope to be acknowledged as his friends, his 
true and faithful followers, let us esteem 
every precept he hath given concerning 
everything to be right ; and let us give our- 
selves to the unreserved, unrestricted doing 
of his will (Matt. v. 21, 27). 

“ Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the 
end of the world.” Jesus had spoken much 
to his disciples about his departure from 
them, about his leaving them alone. “ I go 
my way,” he had said to them in the upper 
chamber, “ and none of you asketh,' Whither 
goest thou? A little while and ye shall 
not see me, and again a little while and ye 
shall see me, because I go to the Father. I 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


219 


came forth from the Father, and am come into 
the world ; again, I leave the world, and go 
to the Father. And ye now therefore have 
sorrow ; bnt I will see yon again, and your 
heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man 
taketh from yon.” It was in such an affec- 
tionate, sympathizing way that Jesns sought 
beforehand to prepare the minds and hearts 
of his disciples for the shock of his death, 
the sorrow of his departure. For a little 
while they did not see him ; he was lost in 
the darkness of the sepulchre. Again, for 
a little while, they did see him, on those 
few occasions when he made himself visible 
to them after his resurrection. Even, how- 
ever, on one of the earliest of these appear- 
ances, he seemed at pains to remove the 
idea from his disciples’ minds that he had 
returned in order to abide. “Touch me 
not,” was his language to Mary, “ for I am 
not yet ascended to my Father : but go to 
my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend 
unto my Father and your Father, and to my 
God and your God.” It was as one on his 


220 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


way to the Father, * tarrying but a little 
while on the earth, that he desired during 
the forty days to be recognised. But now, 
when, in this great interview on the moun- 
tain side, he manifests forth his glory, takes 
to himself his great power, announces the 
universal sovereignty which had been put 
into his hands as the Mediator, issues the 
great commission upon which, in all ages, 
his followers were to act, he closes by speak- 
ing, not of his approaching departure, but 
of his continued, his abiding presence : “ Lo, 
I am with you alway, even unto the end of 
the world.” The Omnipotent reveals him- 
self thus as the Omnipresent also : 1 Go ye 
into all nations, Go to the farthest corner of 
the habitable globe, but know that, go 
where you will, my presence goeth with you. 
Labour on, generation after generation, but 
know that the time shall never come when 
I shall leave you or forsake you. My bodily 
presence I remove ; with the eye of sense 
soon you shall see me no more ; but my 
spiritual presence shall never be withdrawn ; 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


221 


it shall abide with you continually, even to 
the end of the world, till I come again, till 
that time arrive when it shall no longer be 
said that I will come to you to live with 
you, — when I shall come to take you to 
myself, that where I am there ye may be 
also.’ 

The richest legacy he could have left to 
it is this promise of his abiding presence 
with the Church. Looking at the Church 
generally, at the church in any one country 
or in any one city, any one section of the 
church, — we may often wonder and be 
afraid as we contemplate the difficulties she 
has to contend with in going forth to exe- 
cute the great errand upon which she has 
been sent. This is the light, however, in all 
the darkness. All power has been given to 
Christ in heaven and earth ; he has been 
constituted Head over all things for the 
Church. This headship over all the princi- 
palities and powers of darkness, this power 
over all things in heaven and earth, shall he 
not employ in helping onward the great 


222 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


movement which is to give him the heathen 
for his inheritance, the uttermost parts of 
the earth for his possession ? 

It is not indeed by bare might and power 
that this great conquest of the world is to 
be won. When Jesus says, All power is 
given unto me in heaven and earth, he does 
not add, Go ye therefore, and by the employ- 
ment of so much of that power as I may 
please to communicate, subdue all mine ene- 
mies, uproot all rival thrones, set up and 
extend my kingdom. No ; but, Go teach 
and preach, instruct, persuade ; the conver- 
sion of the world to me must be a thing of 
willingness, and not of compulsion. They 
must be taught ; for how shall they call on 
him in whom they have not believed, *and 
how shall they believe on him of whom 
they have not heard, and how shall they 
hear without a preacher, and how shall they 
preach except they be sent ? As it is -writ- 
ten, How beautiful are the feet of them that 
preach the Gospel of peace, and bring glad 
tidings of good things ! But not only must 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


223 


they he taught, the people must be made 
willing in the day of the Lord’s power, — 
a power which shall work on them, not from 
without but from within, drawing them to 
himself. But how shall that power be 
brought into full and living operation ? It 
comes, it works according to our faith, in 
answer to our prayers ; it comes through 
the realizing of the presence of the Saviour ; 
the pleading for the promise of the Spirit 
to be fulfilled. Do we ask ourselves why 
is it that so many hundred years have 
rolled away since these words were spoken 
in Galilee ; since the world was given by 
him into the hands of his followers, to go 
out upon it, and reclaim it unto God, and 
yet so little progress has been made towards 
the great consummation ; not half the globe 
yet even nominally won? The answer is 
at hand: Our lack of faith; our lack of 
prayer ; our lack of efforts undertaken in 
the name, and prosecuted in the promised 
strength of the Redeemer. 

But this great parting promise of our 


224 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


Lord is to be taken by us as addressed not 
merely to the Church at large in her col- 
lective capacity, or as engaged in her pub- 
lic work of propagating the truth as it is 
in Jesus. It is to be taken as addressed to 
every individual Christian. “ Behold,” says 
Jesus, “ I stand at the door, and knock ; if 
any man hear my voice, and open the door, 
I will come in to him, and will sup with 
him, and he with me.” “ If a man love me, 
he will keep my words, and my Father will 
love him, and we will come unto him, and 
make our abode with him.” I will come ; 
I and my Father will come. We will come. 
Was ever such a plural used as that ! Who 
is he who associates himself in this way 
with the omnipresent and omnipotent Jeho- 
vah, who engages for the Father, and what 
he engages for the Father undertakes equally 
himself? We will come to him, not to pay 
a transient visit, not as the wayfaring man 
who turns aside to tarry but for a night. 
We will take up our abode with him. To 
have these words of Jesus realized in one’s 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


225 


daily, hourly life, to know and believe that 
lie is indeed with us, beside us, has come 
to us, has taken up bis abode with us, this 
is our comfort and our strength. Nothing 
short of this will do. No general belief in 
all that Jesus was and did and suffered 
here on earth, no belief in anything about 
him, nothing but himself in living, loving 
presence, seen and felt by us, as a presence 
as real as that of the closest companionship 
of life ; as real, but a thousand times closer, 
a thousand times more precious. 

How well he knows this who has said 
and done so much to encourage his people 
in all ages to realize his presence with them 
in all the stages of their earthly life ! A 
famine drives Isaac from Judea. He halts 
at Gerar, meditating a still farther flight. 
The Lord appears to him and says to him, 
“ Go not down into Egypt ; dwell in the 
land which I shall tell thee of. Sojourn in 
this land, and I will be with thee and will 
bless thee.” Let the patriarch but know 
and feel that the Lord is with him, and no 
10 * 


226 


THE GEEAT COMMISSION. 


fear shall drive him from the place which 
that God hath appointed as his habitation. 
Sleeping Jacob, lies with his head upon the 
stony pillow ; the vision comes to him by 
night ; the Lord speaks to him from the top of 
the mystic ladder : “ Behold, I am with thee, 
and will keep thee in all places whither thou 
goest, and will bring thee again into this 
land, for I will not leave thee till I have 
done that which I have spoken to thee of.” 
Let Jacob but carry a sense of that presence 
along with him, and his solitary path and his 
fears of exile shall be lightened, and that 
future, so dark to him as he fled from his 
father’s presence, shall be turned into light. 
It was a heavy task for hands like J oshua’s 
to undertake to be successor to such a man 
as Moses. When that great leader of the 
people died, how destitute and helpless must 
Joshua have felt ! What a crowd of diffi- 
culties must have risen up before his mind, 
as standing in the way of the invasion and 
the conquest of Canaan ! But all his dis- 
couragements were met by that word of 


THE GEEAT COMMISSION. 


227 


Jeliovali : “ Be strong and of a good cour- 
age ; as I was with Moses, so shall I be with 
thee ; I will not fail thee nor forsake thee. 
There shall not any man be able to stand 
before thee all the days of thy life.” Solo- 
mon had almost as difficult a succession to 
fill as Joshua. It was no easy duty to take 
David’s place, and to carry out his great 
design. But there was a way in which he 
might have been strengthened for the task. 
“If,” said the Lord to him, “thou wilt 
hearken unto all that I command thee, Ixo ill 
be with thee , and build thee a sure house.” 
And still, whatever be the peculiarities of 
our lot in life, the nature of the duties we 
have to discharge, the difficulties to contend 
with, the trials to bear, the temptations to 
meet, still it is the fulfilment of that most 
gracious promise, I will be with thee , which 
alone can bear us up, and bear us through. 
Let us rest more simply and entirely on it, 
trying, as we advance in life, to have more 
and more of the spirit of the Psalmist, as 
he looked out upon the future and said, “ I 


228 


THE GREAT COMMISSION. 


will fear no evil, for thou, art with me ; thy 
rod and thy staff they comfort me. Surely 
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the 
days of my life; and I will dwell in the 
house of the Lord for ever.” 


IX. 



There are ten appearances of our Saviour 
after Ids resurrection recorded in tlie New 
Testament. So many as five of them oc- 
curred on the day of the resurrection : those, 
namely, to Mary Magdalene, to the Galilean 
women, f to Peter, to the two disciples on 
their way to Emmaus, to the ten apostles 
and others assembled in the evening within 
the upper chamber. The sixth appearance 
was to the eleven and the rest on the even- 
ing of the seventh day from that on which 
he rose from the dead. The seventh — 
spoken of by John as the third time that 
he showed himself, inasmuch as it was the 
third occasion upon which he had met with 
them collectively, or in any considerable num- 
ber together — was to the seven disciples by 
the sea of Tiberias. The eighth was the 

* Luke xxiv. 44-53 ; Acts i. 3-8. f See Appendix D. 

(229) 


230 


THE ASCEHSIOH. 


great manifestation on tlie mountain side 
of Galilee. The ninth, of which we should 
have known nothing but for the simple re- 
cord of it preserved in the fifteenth chapter 
of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, was 
to James the brother of the Lord ; and 
finally, the tenth, on the occasion of the 
ascension. There may have been other un- 
recorded appearances of our Lord. It is 
nowhere said in the Gospels or Epistles 
that there were none else besides the ones 
related therein. But the nature of the case, 
and the manner of the narrative, forces upon 
us the belief that if there were any such, 
they must have partaken of the character 
of the manifestation to James ; having a 
private and personal, rather than a public 
object in view. But why, if his interviews 
with his followers were so few, his inter- 
course with them so brief, so broken, so re- 
served, did Jesus remain on earth so long ? 
Why were so many as forty days of an ex- 
istence such as his spent by him in this 
way ? It may seem useless even to put a 


TIIE ASCENSION. 


231 


question to wliicli no satisfactory answer 
can be given, inasmuch as, beyond the mere 
statement that he afforded thereby many 
infallible proofs of his resurrection, nothing- 
explicit is said in the Scriptures as to the 
particular object or design of this lingering 
of our Lord so long upon the earth. And 
yet it is - scarcely possible for us to forget, 
or to fail in being struck by it, that this 
period of forty days was one which had 
already been signalized in the history of 
redemption ; and looking at the other in- 
stances in which it meets our eye in the 
Scripture narrative, we are tempted to put 
the question, Was it as Moses was with- 
drawn from men, to spend these forty days 
in fasting and prayer on the Mount with 
God, as the fit and solemn preparation for 
the promulgation of the Law through his 
hands at Sinai? Was it as Elijah was car- 
ried away into the wilderness, to fast and 
pray there for forty days, to prepare him 
for his great work as the restorer of the 
Law in Israel? Was it as Jesus himself, 


232 


TIIE ASCENSION. 


after his baptism, was led by the Spirit 
into the wilderness, to fast there forty days, 
and at the end to be tempted of the devil, 
to fit him for that earthly ministry which 
was to close in his death upon the cross ? 
"Was it even so that now, for another forty 
days, our Lord was detained on earth, as 
the suitable preface or prelude to his en- 
trance upon that higher stage of the media- 
torial work in which he is to sit upon the 
throne, from henceforth expecting till his 
enemies be made his footstool ? 

Passing, however, from a topic which must 
remain shrouded in obscurity, let us take 
up the incidents of our Lord’s parting in- 
terview with his apostles. They have re- 
turned from Galilee, and are now once more 
at Jerusalem. There might have been some 
specific instruction to that effect delivered 
in private to themselves, or communicated 
to them through James, which brought the 
disciples back from Galilee to Jerusalem. 
But we do not need to suppose that it was 
so, in order to account for the movement ; 


} 


THE ASCESTSIOH. 


233 


for let us remember that this period of forty 
days was immediately preceded by the great 
festival of tlie Passover, and followed by 
that of Pentecost, both of which required 
the presence of the apostles at Jerusalem. 
It was not till the first of them was over 
that they could well leave the Holy City, 
and so you find them remaining there for a 
week after the resurrection. And now the 
promised and appointed meeting in Galilee 
having taken place, the approach of the 
second festival naturally invited their re- 
turn. However it came about, the fortieth 
day after the resurrection saw the eleven 
and their companions once more assembled 
at Jerusalem. Christ’s former meetings with 
them there collectively had been in the 
evening, in the closed chamber, where they 
had assembled in secret for fear of the Jews. 
This last one, though we know not when or 
how it commenced, may have begun in the 
same supper chamber already hallowed by 
the former meetings, but it was obviously 
at an earlier hour, and took place in the 


234 


THE ASCENSION. 


broad daylight. The first, or earlier part 
of it — that spent within the city — appears 
to have been devoted to the renewal and 
exjDansion of such instructions as he had 
delivered to the two disciples on their jour- 
ney to Emmaus. We gather this from the 
44th to the 47th verses of the 24th chapter 
of St. Luke’s Gospel. It is very natural 
to read these verses in immediate connexion 
with those which go before, and to regard 
them simply as a continuation of the narra- 
tive of what occurred at that meeting on 
the evening of the resurrection day. And 
so indeed, in common with the majority of 
readers, we were at first disposed to regard 
them. By reading on to the end of the 
chapter, however, you will at once perceive 
that the narrator, without any note or mark 
of time, has condensed into one short and 
continuous statement all that he had then 
to say about the period between the resur- 
rection and the ascension ; omitting so en- 
tirely all mention of any after day or after 
meetings, that if you had had nothing but 


THE ASCENSION. 


235 


this last chapter of Luke to guide you, you 
might have imagined — indeed, could not 
well have thought anything else — that the 
ascension had taken place on the very even- 
ing of the resurrection day. The same nar- 
rative, however, Luke has, in the first chap- 
ter of the Acts, filled up, and broken down 
into its parts the biaef and summary notice 
with which he had closed his Gospel. And 
it is when we compare what he says in the 
one mating with what he says in the other, 
that we become persuaded that the verses 
from the 44th downwards of the last chap- 
ter in his Gospel belong to and describe, 
not what happened in the evening inter- 
view on the day of the resurrection, but 
what happened in the last interview of all 
on the day of the ascension ; for you will 
notice as common to the two accounts, the 
peremptory injunction laid upon the apos- 
tles, that they were not to leave Jerusalem 
till the promise of the Father had been ful- 
filled, and the baptism of the Spirit had 
been conferred. Such an injunction would 


236 


THE ASCEHSIOH. 


not have been proper to the occasion of the 
first interview in the npper chamber. They 
were to leave Jerusalem, and in point of 
fact did leave it, after that meeting, to see 
the Lord in Galilee. According, however, 
to the account contained in the Acts of the 
Apostles, it w r as after the command had 
been given that they should not depart from 
Jerusalem that Jesus spake to them of their 
being witnesses unto him in Jerusalem, and 
in all Judea and in Samaria, and unto the 
uttermost parts of the earth ; an announce- 
ment which corresponds with that contained 
in the 47th and 48th verses of the chapter 
in the Gospel, leading us naturally to con- 
clude that these verses relate to the final 
meeting on the ascension day. We must 
make a break somewhere in the chapter of 
the Gospel; and it seems, on the whole, 
much more natural and consistent to make 
it at the end of the 43d than at the 48th 
verse. 

Adopting, then, this idea, we have the 
fact before us that, in the first instance, 


THE ASCENSION. 


237 


when lie met with the eleven in the course 
of that day on which he was taken up into 
heaven, our Saviour occupied himself with 
showing them how needful it was that all 
things that had been written in the law of 
Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms 
regarding him should be fulfilled; with 
showing them how exactly many of their 
ancient prophecies had met with their fulfil 
ment in the manner and circumstances of 
his death ; with showing them how it be- 
hoved him to suffer, and through suffering 
to reach the throne of that kingdom which 
he came to set up on the earth ; — at once 
unfolding to them the Scriptures, and open- 
ing their minds to understand them. As 
on the first, so now on the last day of his 
being with them, this was the chosen theme 
on which he dwelt ; this the lesson upon 
which a larger amount of pains and care 
were bestowed by our Lord after his resur- 
rection than upon any other. What weight 
and worth does this attach to these Old 
Testament testimonies to his Messiahship ! 


238 


THE ASCENSION. 


wliat a sanction does it lend to our searching 
of their prophetic records, in the belief that 
we shall find much there pointing, in pro- 
phecy and type and figure, to the Lamb 
slain before the foundation of the earth, the 
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins 
of- the world. 

Our Lord’s exposition of these Scriptures 
could not have been wholly in vain. The 
veil which had been upon the hearts of his 
apostles in their former reading of the pro- 
phecies must have been at least partially 
removed. Their notions of a Messiah com- 
ing only to conquer, only to restore and 
establish and extend the old Jewish theo- 
cracy, must have been materially altered 
and rectified. When, then, after all these 
expositions of their Master, — after all the 
fresh light he had thrown upon the true 
nature of his kingdom and the manner of 
its establishment; you find them coming to 
him and saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time 
restore again the kingdom to Israel \ it 
could scarcely be that, ignoring all they had 


THE ASCENSION. 


239 


just heard, and clinging still to their first 
belief, they were inquiring about an imme- 
diate erection of that temporal and visible 
kingdom which had previously so engrossed 
their thoughts and hopes. Let us rather 
belive that, accepting all which Jesus had 
taught them, admitting now fully the idea 
of a suffering and dying Messiah, their con- 
ceptions altered and elevated at once as to 
the kind of kingdom he was to set up, and 
the way in which that kingdom was to be 
established and advanced, — building upon 
these new foundations, their old spirit of 
curiosity found now a new object on which 
to fasten. They saw now the need there 
was that Jesus should have suffered all 
these things ; but still there was a kingdom 
which, through these sufferings, he was to 
reach, a glory on which, when these were 
over, he was to enter. Still there lay within 
these prophecies, which their minds had now 
been opened to understand, many a wonder- 
ful announcement of the part which Israel 
was to take in the erection and consolida- 


240 


THE ASCENSION. 


tion of the Redeemer’s empire upon this 
earth. So much had already been accom- 
plished by their Lord and Master. He had 
been wounded for their transgressions, 
bruised for their iniquities ; it had pleased 
the Lord to bruise him and put him to 
grief, — was he now instantly to see of the 
travail of his soul; to divide the portion 
with the great, the spoil with the strong ? 
Were nations that knew not him to run 
unto him ; was he to be exalted as Gover- 
nor among the nations ; were all the ends 
of the earth to remember and turn unto the 
Lord, all the kindreds of the nations to 
worship before him ; was his law to go 
forth of Zion, and his word from Jerusalem ; 
and were the nations, as it had been pre- 
dicted they should do in the latter days, the 
days of the Messiah’s reign, to be heard 
saying, Come and let us go up to the moun- 
tain of the Lord, and to the house of the 
God of Jacob ? — Lord, they say to him, with 
some such thoughts floating vaguely through 
their minds, wilt thou at this time restore 


THE ASCENSION. 


241 


again tlie kingdom to Israel? Jesus, in 
answering that question, does not blame, 
does not rebuke ; says nothing that would 
imply that they were radically wrong in the 
hopes which they were cherishing ; that 
there was no such kingdom as that they 
were asking about. Nay, rather, does he 
not assume that the kingdom was to be 
restored to Israel ; that the question was 
only one as to time ; that it was here, in 
their too eager haste and impatience, that 
the error of the disciples lay ? “ And he 

said unto them, It is not for you to know 
the times or the seasons, which the Father 
hath put in his own power;” a somewhat 
different declaration from that which Jesus 
made when, speaking of the time of his 
own second advent, he said, “ Of that day 
and hour knoweth no man, not the angels 
of God,” no, not even the Son in his charac- 
acter as the great prophet and revealer of 
the future to the Church, but the Father 
only. But he does not say that he himself 
was ignorant of the times and the seasons. 

Resurrection. 11 


242 


THE ASCENSI OH. 


He only says that it was not for them, the 
disciples, to know them. They were among 
the secret things which the Father had 
reserved and kept within his own power, to 
reveal when and how and to whom he 
pleased. Would that these words of Jesus 
— among the last he ever uttered — had been 
sufficiently pondered by our prophetic inter- 
preters in their pryings into the unknown 
future which lies before us. Curiosity as to 
that future is not unnatural. There are so 
many things to make us desire to see things 
otherwise and better ordered than they now 
are. There lie too on the pages of prophecy 
so many things which remain yet to be ac- 
complished, such bright and glorious visions 
of a coming period of triumph for the 
truth, a coming reign of peace and virtue 
and piety upon this earth, that we are not 
disposed to quarrel much with those whose 
eyes are turned longingly upon a future out 
of whose pregnant bosom such great and 
glorious things are to emerge. But we are 
most imperatively bound to keep our curi- 


THE ASCENSION. 


243 


osity here under that check which the hand 
of the Eedeemer himself has laid upon it, 
and to remember that he has told us of 
many things which are yet to come to pass, 
not that we might be able to predict them, 
to specify beforehand the dates of their 
arrival, but that when they do come to pass 
we might believe. 

But if that kind of knowledge which they 
were seeking for was denied to the disciples, 
another and better thing was to be given 
them instead. They were to receive power 
from on high do execute that great mission 
upon which they were to be sent forth ; 
that mission was to consist in their proclaim- 
ing everywhere repentance and remission of 
sins in the name of Jesus; and beginning 
at Jerusalem as the centre, they were to go 
forth, not as prophets of the future, but as 
witnesses of the past, witnesses for Christ, 
to carry the glad tidings abroad through all 
Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the utter- 
most parts of the earth. Three things are 
noticeable here : 


244 


THE ASCENSION. 


1. The simplicity of the gospel message 
as originally promulgated by Christ himself. 
Repentance, a turning from all evil, a turn- 
ing with true and penitent spirit to God ; 
remission of sins, the covering of all past 
transgression by an act of grace on the part 
of God ; the remission of sins, offered in the 
name of Jesus, coming only, but coming 
directly, immediately, fully, in and through 
the name of him who is the one all-preva- 
lent Mediator between man and God ; — 
such was the burden of that simple message 
which, in parting from them, Jesus com- 
mitted to his disciples to make known over 
all the earth. 

2. The wider and wider compass of that 
sphere over which this message was to be 
borne by them. Upon the universality of 
its embrace, — its being a message for all 
mankind, for men of every age and country, 
character and condition, — we have already, 
in our last lecture, commented ; but let us 
not overlook the fact as pointing to the true 
order in which all evangelistic labours should 


THE ASCENSION. 


245 


be prosecuted, that the apostles were to 
begin at Jerusalem, to go throughout all 
Judea, to penetrate Samaria with the glad 
tidings, and then to bear them on to the 
uttermost parts of the earth. Whatever 
else may have lain at the bottom of these 
instructions, this at least is apparent, that 
their own capital, their own country, their 
own kindred, their own immediate neigh- 
bours, were first to have the tender made to 
them. Are we wrong in interpreting the 
direction of our Saviour as implying that 
all Christian effort should be from the cen- 
tre to the circumference ; should be so di- 
rected as to fill the inner circles first, — the 
circles of our own heart, our own home, our 
own city, our own country ; and that if, 
overlooking these, neglecting these, we busy 
ourselves among the broader, wider, outer 
circle^, we are reversing the order and run- 
ning counter to the directions of the Master 
whom we serve ? I shall not venture here 
to say how much better I think it would be 
for ourselves and for others, for Christianity 


246 


THE ASCENSION. 


and for the world, if, instead of embarking 
in enterprises which fascinate by the wide- 
ness of their scope, but upon which, just 
because of that wideness, so much labour is 
wasted, each man were to cultivate the little 
sphere which lies more immediately around 
him. 

3. We notice the qualification for Chris- 
tian work, the baptism of the Holy Spirit 
bestowing the needed power. The apostles 
had a great commission given, a great task 
assigned ; the wide world set forth as the 
field of their future labours. But they were 
not as yet prepared to execute this commis- 
sion, to take up this work. They were to 
wait in Jerusalem ; to wait some days ; do 
nothing but wait and pray and hope ; a 
good and useful lesson in itself, subduing, 
restraining the spirit of eager and impatient 
self-confidence — a lesson which is still in 
force ; that pause, that period of inaction, 
those ten days of stillness between the day 
of the ascension and the day of Pentecost, 
as full of instruction still to us as of benefit 


THE ASCETsSIOX. 


247 


originally to tlie disciples. And when tlie 
baptism of fire at last was given, the want- 
ing element was supplied, said here by 
Christ himself to be 'power : “ Tarry ye in 
the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued 
with power from on high.” “ Ye shall re- 
ceive power after that the Holy Spirit is 
come upon you : and ye shall be witnesses 
unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all Ju- 
dea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost 
part of the earth.” Not knowledge so much 
was wanted but power ; a firmer grasp of 
truth already known ; a stronger, deeper, 
steadier attachment to a Saviour already 
loved ; conviction, affection ripened into 
abiding, controlling, enduring principle of 
action; power to be, to do, to suffer. Is 
not that the very thing which in religion 
we all most need ; the very thing we feel 
we cannot ourselves attain ; the very thing 
which it requires the baptism of a heavenly 
influence to bestow ? 

But let us follow Jesus to the mount 
called Olivet. His closing counsels given, 


248 


THE ASCENSION. 


he leads his disciples out of the city. Did 
they, in open day, pass along through the 
streets of Jerusalem ? If they did, how 
many wondering eyes would rest upon the 
well-known group of Galilean fishermen ; 
how many wondering eyes would fix upon 
the leader of that group — the Jesus of Naza- 
reth, whom six weeks before they had seen 
hanging upon the cross at Calvary. Little 
heeding the looks which they attract, they 
pass through the city gate. They are now 
on a well-known track ; they cross the Ke- 
dron; they approach Gethsemane. We lose 
sight of them amid the deep shadows of 
these olive-trees. Has Jesus paused for a 
moment to look, for the last time, with 
those human eyes of his, upon the sacred 
spot where he cast himself on the night of 
his great agony, upon the ground ? Once 
more they emerge ; they climb the hill-side ; 
they cross its summit ; they are approach- 
ing Bethany. He stops ; they gather round. 
He looks upon them ; he lifts his hands ; 
he begins to bless them. What love un- 


THE ASCENSION. 


249 


utterable in that parting look ; what untold 
riches in that blessing ! His hands are up- 
lifted ; his lips are engaged in blessing, when 
slowly he begins to rise : earth has lost her 
power to keep ; the waiting, up-drawing 
heavens claim him as their own. An attrac- 
tion stronger than our globe is on him, and 
declares its power. He rises ; but still as 
he floats upward through the yielding air, 
his eyes are bent on these up-looking men ; 
his arms are stretched over them in the atti- 
tude of benediction, his voice is heard dying 
away in blessings as he ascends. Awe- 
struck, in silence they follow him with strain- 
ing eye-balls, as his body lessens to sight, 
in its retreat upward into that deep blue, 
till the commissioned cloud enfolds, cuts off 
all further vision, and closes the earthly and 
sensible communion between Jesus and his 
disciples. That cloudy chariot bore him 
away, till he was “ received up into heaven, 
and sat down on the right hand of God.” 

How simple, yet how sublime, how pa- 
thetic this parting ! No disturbance of the 
11 * 


250 


THE ASCENSION. 


elements, no chariot of fire, no escort of 
angels; nothing to disturb or distract the 
little company from whom he parts ; nothing 
to the very last to break in upon that close 
and brotherly communion, which is continued 
as long as looking eye and listening ear can 
keep it up. But who shall tell us, when 
• these earthly links were broken, and that 
cloud carried him to the farthest point in 
which cloud could form or fioat, and left 
him there ; who shall tell us what happened 
above, beyond, on the way to the throne ; 
in what new form of glory, by what swift 
flight, attended by what angel escort, accom- 
panied by what burst of angelic praise, that 
throne of the universe was reached ? Our 
straining eyes, we too would turn upward 
to those heavens which received him, and 
wonder at the reception which awaited him 
there, till on our ears there falls that gentle 
rebuke, u Why stand ye gazing up into 
heaven ?” 1 Think not with eyes like yours 

to pierce that cloud which hides the world 
of spirits from mental vision. Enough for 


THE ASCEHSIOH. 


251 


you to know that this same Jesus shall so 
come in like manner as ye have seen him go.’ 

This mild rebuke was given to the men 
of Galilee upon the mountain top by two 
men in white apparel, who stood beside 
them, their presence unnoted till their words 
had broken the deep silence, and drawn 
upon themselves that gaze hitherto directed 
towards heaven, but which had now noth- 
ing above on which to rest ; two angels, 
perhaps the two who had watched and 
waited by the empty sepulchre ; one of 
them the same who in the hour of his great 
agony had been sent to strengthen the sink- 
ing Saviour in the Garden, now stationed 
here at Olivet to soften, as it were, to the 
disciples the sorrow of this parting, to turn 
that sorrow into joy. But how .at that 
moment, when they were discharging this 
kindly but humble office, were the heavenly 
host engaged? Surely, if at the emerging 
out of chaos of this beautiful and orderly 
creation, those sons of God chanted together 
the new world’s birthday hymn ; surely, if 


252 


THE ASCENSION. 


in that innumerable liost above the plains 
of Bethlehem, a great multitude of them 
celebrated, in notes of triumph, a still better 
and more glorious birth — the entire com- 
pany of the heavenly host must have struck 
their harps to the fullest, noblest, richest 
anthem that ever they gave forth, as the 
great Son of God, the Saviour of mankind* 
— his earthly sorrows over, his victories over 
Satan, sin, and death complete — sat down 
that day with the Father on his throne, far 
above all principalities and powers, and 
every name that is named, not only in this 
world, but in that which is to come. Did 
these two angels who were left behind on 
earth, who had this humbler task assigned 
them, feel at all as if theirs were a lower, 
meaner service ? No, they had too much 
of the spirit of Him who had for forty 
days kept that throne waiting to which he 
had now ascended, that he might tabernacle 
still a little longer with the children of men ; 
nor were they ignorant of that word of his, 
(( Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least 


TIIE ASCENSION. 


25 . 


of these my little ones, ye have done it nnto 
me.” 

u Why gaze ye up into heaven ? This 
same Jesus shall so come in like manner as 
ye have seen him go into heaven.” This is 
not a final departure of this Jesus from the 
world he came to save. That was not the 
last look the earth was ever to get of him 
that you got of him as the clouds covered 
him from your view. He is to come again ; 
to come in the clouds of heaven, with power 
and great glory. But for that, perhaps the 
disciples might have returned to Jerusalem 
with sad and downcast spirits, as those from 
whose head their Master had been for ever 
taken away. As it was, they returned, we 
are told, with great joy ; the sorrow of the 
departure swallowed up in the hope of the 
speedy return. So vivid, indeed, was the 
expectation cherished by the first Christians 
of the second advent of the Lord, that it 
needed to be chastened and restrained. 
They required to have their hearts directed 
into a patient waiting for that coming. It 


254 


THE ASCENSION. 


is very different witli us. We require to 
have that faith quickened and stimulated, 
which they needed to have chastened and 
restrained. It is more with wonder than 
with great joy that we return from witness- 
ing the ascension of our Lord. But let us 
remember that though the heavens have re- 
ceived him, it is not to keep him there apart 
for ever from this world. He himself cher- 
ishes no such feeling of retirement and sepa- 
ration now that he has ascended up on high. 
I have spoken to you of his last words of 
blessing which fell audibly upon fleshly ears. 
But what are the very last words that in 
vision he uttered : “ He that testifieth these 
things saith, Surely, I come quickly.” Our 
crowned Saviour waits ; with eager expect- 
ancy waits the coming of the day when his 
presence shall be again revealed among us. 
It may seem slow to us, that evolution of 
the ages which is preparing all things for 
his approach. But with him who says, I 
come quickly, one day is as a thousand years, 
and a thousand years as one day; and as 


THE ASCENSION. 


255 


soon as the curtain shall drop on the last 
act of that great drama of which this earth 
is now the theatre, then, quick as love and 
power can carry him, shall the same Jesus 
be here again on earth, — coming in like 
manner as these men of Galilee saw him go 
up to heaven. Are we waiting for that 
coming, longing for that coming, hastening 
to that coming ? Are we ready, as he says 
to us, “ Behold, I come quickly,” to add as 
our response, “ Amen. Even so, come, Lord 
Jesus !” 



















' 



- 

















• 

• 






• 














X. 

















APPENDIX. 









































































































































APPENDIX A.— P. 18. 


As so closely connected with the subject of our 
Lord’s Resurrection, the author ventures to present 
to the reader the following extracts from an unpub- 
lished course of Lectures on the 15th chapter of the 
First Epistle to the Corinthians. 

“ Now, if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how 
say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead ? 
But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not 
risen : and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and 
your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses 
of God: because we have testified of God that he raised up 
Christ ; whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. 
For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised : and if Christ 
be not raised, your faith is vain ; ye are yet in your sins. Then 
they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in 
this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most 
miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become 
the first-fruits of them that slept.” — 1 Cor. xv. 12-20. 

St. Paul had learned that there were some among 
the Corinthian converts to Christianity who affirmed 
that there was to be no resurrection of the dead. A 
belief in that resurrection has so long, so universally, 
and so strongly been established in the breasts of all 

( 259 ) 


260 


APPENDIX. 


calling themselves by the Christian name, — it is so 
thoroughly recognised as an integral part of the 
Christian faith, that we find some difficulty in con- 
ceiving that at any time any who professed themselves 
to be believers in Christ should have doubted or de- 
nied it. Let us remember, however, that even among 
the Jews, up to the time of the resurrection of our 
Lord himself, the doctrine of the future general re- 
surrection of the dead had not been revealed with 
such plainness as to prevent the whole sect of the 
Sadducees from openly denying it. They accepted 
the Mosaic revelation ; their title to be regarded as 
holders of the Jewish faith was not questioned ; and 
yet they repudiated the belief that the dead were to 
rise again. Outside Judea the notion of a future re- 
surrection of all the dead was so novel and so start- 
ling, that we are not to wonder that a difficulty 
should have been felt in admitting, or a disposition 
displayed — even by those who otherwise lent a favor- 
able ear to the first teachings of Christianity — to re- 
ject it. In that broad Gentile world which the first 
evangelists of the Cross invaded and sought to win 
over to Christianity, there were two elements that 
rose up in strong antagonism to the idea of the re- 
surrection of the dead. There was the materialistic 
Epicurean form of infidelity — twin-sister of the Sad- 
ducean spirit among the Jews — which refused to 
listen to anything beyond what sense or conscious- 


APPENDIX. 


261 


ness made known. This spirit was rife at Athens. 
Paul had already found it there. The men of Athens 
listened to him patiently enough for a time, till he 
spake of the resurrection of the dead, when they 
turned them mockingly and impatiently away : the 
very notion of a future embodiment of that spirit, 
which at death passed they knew not whither or into 
what, being far too gross and too tangible for them 
to receive. Then there was another and very oppo- 
site spirit, begotten in the school of Oriental specu- 
lation, with which the doctrine of the resurrection 
came into the sharpest and most direct collision, — 
the spirit of those teachers of the Gnostic philosophy, 
who asserted that the source of all evil lay in matter ; 
the source of all sin in the soul’s connexion with the 
body. With them, liberation from the body was 
emancipation from all evil ; reunion with th^. body 
would be a reduction of the soul once more into the 
bondage of corruption. Many who cherished this 
deep abhorrence of matter joined the Christian ranks, 
and struggled hard to retain as much as they could 
of their old impressions and beliefs in conjunction 
with their new faith in Jesus Christ. Of such, in all 
likelihood, were Hymeneus and Philetus, referred to 
by Paul some years afterwards in his Second Epistle 
to Timothy, as having erred concerning the faith, 
saying that the resurrection was past already. Seek- 
ing to spiritualize everything, they said that the only 


262 


APPENDIX. 


resurrection was the regeneration of the soul, the 
moral renewal of the inner man of the heart, which 
was already over with all who were made new men 
in Jesus Christ. 

Of these three leavens — the Jewish Sadducean, the 
Greek Epicurean, or the Oriental Gnostic — it is im- 
possible now to tell which it was that had infected 
at so early a period the Church of Corinth. We 
have only the fact before us, that there were some 
within that Church who said that there was to be no 
resurrection of the dead. Otherwise they had re- 
ceived in all its simplicity and in all its fulness the 
gospel that Paul taught ; he had not to complain of 
them as having ever felt or expressed any doubt as 
to that eternal life held out to them in Christ, neither 
had they questioned the fact of Christ’s own resur- 
rection as an incident in his history that had often 
been recounted to them. But, animated by one or 
other of the tendencies that have been already alluded 
to, they had put away from them a belief in the 
general resurrection of the dead. They saw and felt 
no inconsistency in doing so. They thought that 
they could be as good Christians as ever, and yet 
give up that one belief. They did not see how un- 
belief on that one topic would, if admitted and cher- 
ished, spread itself around ; how it went to sap and 
undermine the entire fabric of Christianity, to over- 
turn the very trust and hope that they themselves 


APPENDIX. 


263 


were clinging to. To convince them of all this, and 
by working such conviction to eradicate the rising 
error, is the main object of the apostle in the 15 th 
chapter of the Epistle. . . 

You have a good specimen in the verses imme- 
diately before us of that rapid, condensed, impas- 
sioned kind of reasoning in which Paul so frequently 
indulges. There were some at Corinth, he had been 
informed, who, having made public profession of 
their faith in Christ, were nevertheless disposed to 
deny that there should be a resurrection of the dead. 
At once the incompatibility of the general faith with 
the particular denial rises before the apostle’s thoughts. 
This incompatibility he hastens to expose. Have 
they thought — these deniers of a resurrection from 
the dead — of all which that denial fairly and directly 
involves ? Have they thought of the inconsistencies, 
the absurdities, the incredibilities, that by necessity 
and immediate implication flow out of it ? These he 
presses on their regard, not in the way of laboured 
or lengthened argument, but in brief emphatic de- 
clarations, well fitted to confound as well as to con- 
vince, — to stir the conscience and the heart too, as 
by the voice of a trumpet. I am very conscious how 
much such a series of short, terse statements must 
suffer by any attempt to expand them. But as some 
accidental benefits may perhaps accompany the at- 
tempt, let us take up in order the fatal consequences 


264 


APPENDIX. 


charged here by Paul upon a denial of the resurrec- 
tion of the dead. 

Ver. 13.— “But if there be no resurrection of the 
dead, then is Christ not risen.”* The resurrection 
of the dead and the resurrection of Christ are, in the 
apostle’s judgment, so inseparably connected, that 
they must stand and fall together. If you believe 
one, you must believe both ; if you reject one, you 
must reject both. But how is this ? What is the 
link of connexion between the two events that neces- 
sitates this common acceptance or common rejection 
of them both ? What is it that makes it anything 
like a direct and inevitable conclusion, from the dead 
not rising, that Christ had not risen ? One can 
readily enough see how that, if the resurrection of 
the dead generally were denied upon the ground of 
its strangeness, its undesirableness, its alleged impos- 
sibility, then it must be denied in every instance ; to 
be consistent, you must carry your denial round the 
whole circle of humanity, and take in the man Christ 
Jesus with all the rest. More than this, however, • 
seems to be indicated here. The apostle points to 
some other more hidden nexus or bond of union 
between the two events that he so knits together, 
than that of their being alike mysterious in their char- 
acter, alike difficult of accomplishment. As serving 
to bring out to view what that nexus is, let us notice, 

* Ver. 16. — “ For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised.” 


APPENDIX. 


265 


that it is not of the resurrection of all the dead pro- 
miscuously, — it is of the resurrection of believers ; 
it is of that resurrection unto life which involves the 
deliverance of the soul at death from all the fruits 
and consequences of its transgressions, and its reunion 
afterwards with the body from which it was to suffer 
a temporary separation ; it is of that kind of resur- 
rection, and of it exclusively, that the apostle speaks. 
It was to obtain and secure for all true believers in 
him the benefits and blessedness of such a resurrec- 
tion, that Christ both died and rose and revived. 
He rose from the sepulchre on their account. He 
rose, not as an isolated member of the human fam- 
ily, to whom it might be given to burst the barriers 
of the tomb, whilst all the others remained within 
its hold. Were no other connexion looked at as 
existing between Christ and those who were to rise 
again, than that of their being joint partakers of the 
same human nature, it would be difficult to perceive 
any great force in the argument, that if they were 
not to rise, he could not have risen. There seems 
no such tie existing between the entire membership 
of the human family, as to shut out the possibility 
that there might have been that one solitary instance 
of a resurrection from the dead. But bring in the 
idea of a vital union between Christ and his own ; 
bring in the idea that he is the Resurrection and 
the Life in this sense, that he that believeth in him, 
12 


Resurrection 


966 


APPENDIX. 


though he were dead, yet shall he rise again, that 
whosoever liveth by believing in him shall never 
die ; bring in the idea that Jesus rose not from the 
dead in his individual capacity, but as the head and 
representative of all those whom he was to redeem 
from death and ransom from the power of the grave, 
— and then it is that a meaning and a force is given 
to the declaration, “ If they rise not, then is he not 
risen.” His resurrection, in its true significance, in 
its great design, never can have taken place if it 
draw not that other resurrection of all his people in 
its train. 

2 . Yer. 14 . — But “If Christ be not risen, then is 
our preaching vain.” It is an idle, empty tale, this 
gospel that we have been preaching. You not only 
deprive it of its closing convincing evidence, you 
take out of it its very pith and morrow, if you cast 
away from you the truth that Jesus rose again from 
the dead ; for, is it not upon that rising of his to 
God’s right hand, as the accepted and prevailing 
Mediator, that faith builds its hope of pardon and 
acceptance before God ? Had our gospel stopped 
here, that Christ died for our sins ; had we had no- 
thing more to tell you, than that he sank beneath 
the load of our iniquities that pressed him down to 
death, — where were there evidence to rebut the alle- 
gation that beneath that load he still was lying ; 
where the proof that that death of his for our trans- 


APPENDIX. 


267 


gressions, in the Father’s judgment was sufficient, 
and had by him been accepted as such ? It is that 
rising again of the great Sin-bearer ; his triumphant 
enthronement by the side of his Father in heaven, 
which proclaims the sacrifice complete, the atonement 
adequate. It is because it embraces this within the 
glad tidings that it proclaims, that this gospel which 
we preach is indeed a gospel whereon all may se- 
curely stand, and by which the very chief of sinners 
may be saved. Vain, all-powerless as an instrument 
of comfort would the gospel be, if it pointed only 
to the death and the burial, the shrouded cross and 
the sealed sepulchre, leaving the body of the Cruci- 
fied within that grave wherein man had never lain 
before, but leaving it to share the common fate of 
all the buried inmates of the tomb. And as vain in 
that case would be your faith as was our preaching ; 
vain, because wanting that solid substantial basis to 
rest upon, which the resurrection of Christ supplies. 
Take that foundation from under it, and then see 
how unsettled and insecure your faith in Christ — 
your faith in him as the Redeemer of the lost, the 
Saviour of your soul — would be. 

Ver. 15 . — “ Yea, and we are found false witnesses 
of God ; because we have testified of God that he 
raised up Christ : whom he raised not, if so be that 
the dead rise not.” False witnesses ; not mistaken, 
deceived witnesses, but false witnesses, testifiers to 


268 


APPENDIX. 


that which was not true, and testifiers to its being 
true, themselves knowing it to be false. There was 
here, as to that fact of the resurrection, no room for 
mistake. It was a fact or it was a falsehood. Peter, 
James, the Twelve, the Five Hundred, all said that 
they had seen the Lord ; that he had spoken with 
them, ate with them, showed them his hands and his 
side — been at pains to prove to them that it was no 
shadowy form of their own imagination, that it w r as 
his true and real self, emerged from Joseph’s sepul- 
chre, that they looked upon. Either all that was 
true, or they were wilful, intentional deceivers, try- 
ing to palm a falsehood upon the world. Twenty 
years had passed since the alleged event had hap- 
pened. These twenty years had sifted that testi- 
mony, had searched it more thoroughly than any 
personal cross-examination, how r ever rigorous. The 
witnesses were numerous enough, scattered enough, 
independent enough ; they had repeated their evi- 
dence often enough, and in circumstances varied 
enough to have brought out any inconsistency, to 
have detected any attempted collusion. Had any 
signs or token of imposition ever been discovered in 
any of them ? Could any motive for imposture be 
conceived ? What had they made of it, what -were 
they ever likely to make of it, by proclaiming and 
repeating it, that Jesus had risen from the grave ? 

Yea, and among these men branded thus as false 


APPENDIX. 


269 


witnesses, if Christ did not really rise, Paul himself 
must be reckoned. That he should ever have such a 
brand affixed to him, that he should ever once be 
thought of as an impostor, a deceiver ; is there not 
something in the very manner of Paul’s speech here, 
that tells us how monstrous to himself, and surely as 
incredible to others, the very supposition seemed ? 
So far as it is or can be a mere matter of human tes- 
timony, we would be willing to peril the whole fate 
of Christianity upon the evidence of that one wit- 
ness, Paul ; that evidence as it lies before us in his 
letters written at different times, from different places, 
in different circumstances, to different persons ; so 
frank, so full, so overflowing, the whole thought, the 
whole heart of the man, so unrestrainedly poured 
forth. Read these letters, and say, is it possible that 
you could have got a man more thoroughly qualified, 
by his intelligence and his clear-sightedness, and early 
acquaintance both with the Jewish and Gentile faiths, 
to decide upon the matter, — his birth, his education, 
his position, his earthly prospects, all tending to 
create a bias against and not in favour of the new 
faith ? How are you to account for it, that there 
upon the spot ; there within so short a time after the 
crucifixion of our Lord; there, with every means 
lying open to him of examining into the truth of all 
the facts and miracles of our Lord’s history, such a 
man became a convert to Christianity? We have 


270 


APPENDIX. 


his own account of that conversion, an account which 
if we accept as true determines the whole matter ; 
hut even setting that account aside, look at the after- 
life and labours, toils and sufferings of this man, 
crowned at last with the martyr’s death. How are 
we to account for them on any other supposition than 
that of the truth of Christianity ? If anything that 
the other apostles testified as to the facts of the Sa- 
viour’s life had been false, Paul must have found it 
out ; and had he found it out, would he not have 
been the first and the loudest in proclaiming it ? If 
ever there was an honest seeker after the truth ; if ever 
there was an ardent lover of the truth ; if ever there 
was a devoted adherent to the truth, a man who would 
do all and dare all to get at it, and would bear all 
and sacrifice all rather than part with or deny it, — 
that man was Paul. Can any one read his Epistles 
with the shadow of a doubt as to his entire truthful- 
ness, earnestness, integrity of thought and purpose ? 
Paul a false witness ! do we not now scout the very 
idea of it as promptly and almost as indignantly as, 
eighteen hundred years ago, when he first penned the 
15th verse of this chapter, Paul scouted it himself. 

“ And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain ; 
ye are yet in your sins.” Those sins of yours Jesus 
took upon him, made them virtually his own, bare 
them in his own body on the tree. It was for those 
sins he died ; died that he might redeem or deliver 


APPENDIX. 


271 


you from all their bitter fruits, that he might ransom 
you from the power of the grave ; but if he have 
not risen, if death still hold him in its stiff and unre- 
laxed embrace, if the grave stjll keep in its stern 
custody that body which was wounded for your 
transgressions, — then, brethren, the sting has not 
been taken from the last enemy, the victory has not 
been wrested from the grave, that death of Christ 
has failed in realizing its predicted issue. Instead of 
triumphing in your stead and on your behalf over 
death, death has triumphed over him, leaving thus 
your deliverance unaccomplished. And if so, then 
are ye yet in your sins ; the whole weight of their 
guilt still lieth upon you ; the whole burden of their 
penalty remains yet to be borne. It is a strange, let 
us even say, an incredible or impossible hypothesis 
that Paul puts, that Christ should have taken on him 
our sins, yet sunk beneath the burden thus voluntarily 
assumed ; but do not the very form in which that 
hypothesis is here presented, and the conclusion 
drawn from the temporary assumption of its truth, 
— namely, that in that case these Corinthian believers 
would still be in their sins, — do they not necessarily 
enfold within them the great truth that Christ’s 
death was designed to be a vicarious atoning sacrifice 
whereby the whole guilt of all those sins that we 
truly repent of, and truly lay by faith on him, was to 
be lifted off us, removed by him ? Refuse that charac- 


272 


APPENDIX. 


ter to the Saviour’s death, and what meaning do you 
leave to the language, what force to the reasoning 
that the apostle here employs ? 

The whole passage, indeed, now before us is 
stripped (it seems to me) of significance, of cohe- 
rence, of all argumentative weight and power, if 
such a sacrificial, a sin-bearing character, be not 
attached to that great decease accomplished at Jeru- 
salem. You may convince yourselves of this by try- 
ing how the passage would read, how the inferences 
it contains would hold upon any view of the death 
of our Redeemer which rejects the idea of a true 
and sufficient atonement having been thereby made 
for the sins of the world. 

Paul’s object is to overset the unbelief in the resur- 
rection of the dead, by heaping one upon another 
the conclusions to which, if fully and legitimately 
carried out, that unbelief would lead. It would 
involve, in the first instance, a rejection of the resur- 
rection of Christ himself, and the denial of that 
resurrection would in its turn lead us to the conclu- 
sion that those who had been looking to the Saviour’s 
death for the remission of their sins had been looking 
in vain, that they were yet in their sins. But a still 
further and still sadder inference would follow, — 
“ Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ 
are perished.” Your dead in Christ, your fathers, 
your brethren, who have fallen asleep resting for the 


APPENDIX. 


273 


forgiveness of their sins in the completed and 
accepted sacrifice, — What of them, what of their 
present state, what of their eternal destiny, if Jesus 
have not risen from the grave ? For them there 
-would be no future resurrection of the body. That 
you , ye deniers of all such resurrection, may deem 
no loss, as you desire it not for yourselves ; neither 
may it pain you to think that your departed friends 
shall not share in it. But, have you reflected upon 
this, that if Jesus be not raised, and if that leave 
you, the living who are trusting in him, with your 
sins still on you, their guilt uncancelled, — it leaves 
them, the dead, with their sins still on them in that 
world into which they have passed ; it leaves them 
lost, it consigns them to perdition, the second death 
has come upon them, and from it who shall deliver ? 
Such seems to have been the train of thought in the 
apostle’s mind, binding the l7tL‘and 18th verses 
together. The imagined perishing at last of those 
who had fallen asleep in Jesus, that Paul here has 
for the moment in his eye, could not have been their 
annihilation at death, their ceasing then to exist ; for 
how in any possible way of conceiving of it or 
employing it, could the fact that Christ had not risen 
from the tomb be made to draw after it the conclu- 
sion that those who had died trusting in the efficacy 
of his atoning death, at that death ceased altogether 
and for ever to have any existence ? It is a far 
12 * 


274 


APPENDIX. 


worse, far darker fate than that of annihilation, that 
the apostle points to as awaiting those who though 
they had fallen asleep in Jesus, yet if he had not 
risen are yet in their sins even when they so died. 
Were the Corinthians then ready to harbour or give 
any countenance to speculations and incredulities 
which, driven to their last logical issues, would repre- 
sent their departed brethren as going down into the 
dark valley with a lie in their right hand, and as 
awakers on the other side of death to the terrible 
consciousness that they had believed in vain ? 

And truly, adds the apostle, if it be in this life 
only that we have hope in Christ, if that hope be 
doomed at death to perish, then we of all men are 
most miserable. Not that the apostle is here calmly 
instituting a comparison between himself and his 
brother believers in Christ on the one hand, and the 
rest of mankind on the other, and as the result of 
such comparison, declaring that during this present 
life he and they were unhappier men than the others, 
the only thing to. mitigate their greater misery the 
hope they had in Jesus. We may say it boldly, that 
even though it should turn out hereafter that all his 
present faith and hope in Christ were vain, the true 
Christian man is not more miserable, but all the 
happier, for his faith and hope. We do not regard 
the utterance of the 19 th verse as a didactic state- 
ment to be logically analysed by us, but as a passion- 


APPENDIX. 


275 


ate exclamation, bursting from the apostle’s lips, on 
the imagination starting up before his thoughts, that 
for him no Saviour had risen triumphant from the 
grave, for him no satisfying atonement had been 
offered up on Calvary, that he and his fellow-believ- 
ers were yet in their sins, that all of them must 
perish. If that be so ; if, says he, after all that I 
have seen and felt of my great sinfulness before God, 
— of my need of a Redeemer, — of the power and 
preciousness of the death of Christ, — if after all that 
I have given up, all that I have done and suffered 
for him whom I have counted to be my resurrection 
and my life, — you tell me now that it is in this life 
only that my hope of acceptance and of the divine 
favour through him can stand, then truly of all men 
I am the most miserable. From that great hope 
fling me down into that great despair, and you will 
not find a man on earth so miserable as I. It light- 
ened my labours ; it comforted my griefs ; it bore 
me through all my conflicts. I was thrice beaten 
with rods, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a day and a 
night I was in the deep ; but in all kinds of perils, 
in weariness and painfulness, in hunger, thirst and 
watchings, in fastings, in cold, in nakedness, so 
brightly shone that hope within my soul, that I could 
look back on twenty years so spent, filled up above 
all common measure with all sorts of suffering, and 
say, Our light affliction which is but for a moment, 


■ 276 


APPENDIX. 


worketh out for us a more exceeding and eternal 
weight of glory ; for I reckoned that the sufferings 
of this present life are not worthy to be compared 
with the glory that was to be revealed. But now, 
cut away from me that hope, fling me a sinful man 
adrift on those troubled waters, quench all my lights, 
put out that opening glory beyond the grave, — no 
cross for me to steer by, no heavenly eternal rest to 
reach, — in all the wide ocean was ever mariner in 
such a wretched plight ? 

But blessed be God, that cannot be done ! Christ 
hath risen ; it is not in this life only we have hope 
in him. Instead of being of all men the most miser- 
able, of all men we are the most blessed. Christ 
hath risen, and that rising of our Lord seals our hope 
in him as sure, and points us to the heavenly place 
that he has entered, as to the regions where in an 
eternity of blessedness that hope shall be fulfilled. 
Christ hath risen ; then they also which have fallen 
asleep in him have not perished. He was dead, but 
he is alive again, and they live with him for ever- 
more. Christ hath risen, and ye are no longer in 
your sins. He has taken them, he has atoned for 
them, he has buried them far out of sight and reach 
of the avenger ; as far as the east is from the west, 
so far hath he removed them from you. Christ hath 
risen ; and in rising left behind the pledge and token 
that to them that are in him there is and shall be no 


APPENDIX. 


277 


condemnation ; for who is he that condemneth ? it 
is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, 
who is even at the right hand of God, who also 
maketh intercession for us. 

The Lord is risen indeed : such we are told were 
the joy-inspiring words with which each Lord’s-day 
morning, as they met for worship, the early Chris- 
tians were wont to salute one another. And when 
we count over, as brought out in this wonderful 
chapter, all the benefits and blessings the rising of 
the Lord secured, could they, we ask ourselves, have 
fixed upon a fitter phrase to express at once how 
rich their heritage, how full their joy, how bright 
their hope, how firm the foundation of their trust ? 

Yer. 20. — Assume for the moment — so had the 
apostle put it in the preceding verses — that Christ 
has not risen from the dead : what would be the 
issue ? An empty preaching, an empty faith, an 
empty gospel, out of them their very core and sub- 
stance taken ; the living left in their sin, the dead 
left to perish. Dark and dismal conclusions these ; 
but conclusions to which one who otherwise is a 
believer in Christ is shut up, if he let go his hold of 
that great central fact — the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ. But now, continues the apostle, take hold 
of that great fact ; grasp it firmly as one of the best 
substantiated events in this world’s past history, and 
then see what opposite conclusions — as bright and 


278 


APPENDIX. 


comforting, as the others were dark and dismal — 
follow from a belief in that event. That it involves 
the certain, final, and glorious resurrection into life 
of all those found in him, — this is what the apostle 
proceeds so distinctly and emphatically to declare. 

I shall not trouble you with any speculations ; still 
less shall I offer you any dogmatic deliverance upon 
the question how far the resurrection of the dead 
generally is a fruit or consequence of the resurrec- 
tion of Christ. There are some who tell us that the 
general resurrection of the dead is no part of the 
remedial or mediatorial economy ; is in no sense the 
result of the interposition of a Redeemer ; that if 
Christ had not come at all, there would have been a 
general resurrection of the dead, notwithstanding, — 
the raising up of all to receive in the body the sent- 
ence of the second death. There are others who tell 
us that the original curse was a curse of death on 
the whole man, and that this curse, so long as it lay 
unrepealed, could not allow of the body’s resurrec- 
tion ; that without Christ, and apart from the 
redemption of our nature effected by his death, there 
would and could have been no resurrection ; that if 
there had been no interposition on behalf of the 
fallen, whatever had become of the souls of men 
their bodies must have remained under the tyranny 
of death. There is a link, they say, which unites 
Christ with every individual of the vast family of 


APPENDIX. 


279 


man, and that it is in virtue of this link, and of it 
alone, that the graves of earth shall, at the last day, 
yield up their dead. 

It would not be difficult to suggest considerations 
furnished upon general conceptions of the nature and 
designs of the mediatorial economy, which might 
seem to lend a strong support to one or the other of 
these two views, and it would be still less difficult, 
perhaps, to suggest difficulties which press upon 
them both. 

But are we asked or bound to make our choice 
between them ? Are the materials in our hands to 
come to any positive conclusion here ? Is it of any 
practical moment to us to be able definitely to say 
what would have happened to the inhabitants of this 
earth, had no Saviour come, no redemption been 
wrought out ? Men who think they so thoroughly 
understand the principles of the Divine government, 
the plans and purposes of the Eternal, as to be able 
to determine what, in such an imagined state of 
things, should have been the result, may pronounce 
their verdict ; but for ourselves, we are content, on 
this as on so many other points, to remain in igno- 
rance or in doubt ; confessing that, however clear 
the light may be which the Scriptures throw upon 
our present duty and our future destiny, as things 
now are, it does not seem to us sufficient, nor do we 
think it was ever meant, to let us so far into the 


280 


APPENDIX. 


secret counsels of the Most High as to enable 
us to decide upon such questions as the one now 
referred to. 

It might, indeed, at first sight, appear that the 
verses which are now before us, deal with that very 
matter of the connexion between the resurrection of 
our Lord and the general resurrection of the dead. 
The structure, however, of the entire argument of 
this chapter ; the link by which its reasonings are 
bound together ; its whole drift and issue, tell us 
that it is with the resurrection of believers, and with 
it exclusively, that Paul is dealing, and even here, 
in these verses, however general be the terms that 
sometimes meet us, we shall find, as we unfold their 
meaning, that the same holds true. 

But now is Christ risen, risen as the first-fruits of 
them that sleep. The relation in which his resurrec- 
tion stands to that of all his people, is like to that in 
which the first ripe grain, the first ripe fruits of 
autumn, stands to that whole harvest of which they 
form a part, and of which they furnish an earnest. 
You bind up that first cut sheaf of yellow corn, you 
pluck those first ripe grapes or olives from these 
fruit-laden branches, and as you do so you count 
with confidence, trusting in the stability of the laws 
of nature, that the reaping process will go on, and 
the broad fields and vineyards of the land will yield 
up their rich harvest stores. You see the Saviour 


APPENDIX. 


281 


rise, and in that rising you behold the pledge and 
promise of the rising of all who sleep in him ; the 
resurrection of the entire body of his redeemed is 
that great harvest-home of which his rising from the 
dead is the first-fruits ; and trusting in the stability of 
those laws by which the moral and spiritual govern- 
ment of the world is carried on, you count upon it 
with confidence that he who raised up the Lord 
Jesus shall raise up them also with him. In truth, 
the pledge or promise is in this latter case the more 
secure. Such a thing might happen in nature as 
there being first-fruits with no harvest following ; 
those genial influences of light and warmth beneath 
which the fields gradually ripen, might at least be so 
far interfered with or checked that the promise of 
the first-fruits, if not utterly broken, might yet be 
but imperfectly fulfilled. Not so with the processes 
of ripening into that great spiritual harvest ; they 
certainly shall go on ; no process of nature more 
uniform or more inviolate than that by which the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ provides for, embraces, 
and secures the resurrection of all his followers. 

Perhaps in using the term “ first-fruits ” here the 
apostle had in his eye that Jewish ordinance. 
“ When ye be come into the land which I give unto 
you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall 
bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto 
the priest : and he shall wave the sheaf before the 


282 


APPEOT)IX. 


Lord, to be accepted for you ; on the morrow after 
the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.” Before this 
offering of the first-fruits, no crop of the land could 
be reaped ; it must not be touched, nor turned to 
use till it was all first Consecrated by this presenta- 
tion of the first-fruits by the priest within the temple, 
before the altar. And this presentation was to take 
place on the second day of unleavened bread, the 
day after the Sabbath, the very day of the resurrec- 
tion of our Lord. Thus it was that in that old rite 
of Judaism there passed before the eye a symbolic 
representation of another and higher offering, that 
made by our great High Priest when, within the 
holy place not made with hands, he presented himself 
before the throne, the first-fruits of the dead, an 
offering accepted by the Lord, for all his people, 
consecrating that buried dust of theirs as dear in the 
Lord’s sight to be quickened in due time, and gath- 
ered in to be laid up in the heavenly garner. 


APPENDIX. 


283 


APPENDIX B. — P. 61 . 

It is interesting to compare the nine different 
appearances of our Lord after his resurrection men- 
tioned in the Gospels, with the six alluded to by St. 
Paul in the following verses : — 

“ For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also re- 
ceived, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scrip- 
tures ; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third 
day according to the Scriptures ; and that he was seen of 
Cephas, then of the twelve ; after that, he was seen of above 
five hundred brethren at once ; of whom the greater part re- 
main unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, 
he was seen of James ; then of all the apostles. And last of all 
he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.” — 1 Cor. 
xv. 3-8. 

We have here the earliest written account of the 
resurrection of Christ, coming from the pen of the 
apostle of the Gentiles between twenty and thirty 
years after the date of the event. -That account 
derives an additional interest from its forming part 
of the evidence direct and indirect furnished by the 
writings of St. Paul as to the facts of the gospel 
narrative. As compared with other witnesses to the 
truth of these facts, he assumes a separate and inde- 


284 


APPEOTIX. 


pendent position, declaring that he had himself seen 
the Lord and derived his knowledge of his history 
by direct revelation from himself.* 

Of the six appearances of our Lord to which he 
refers, we can identify four with one or other of 
those recorded in the Gospels. As he appears to 
place them in the order of time, the first two which 
he mentions, those to Cephas and to the twelve, we 
may regard as the same with two of the five men- 
tioned by the evangelists as having occurred on the 
day of the resurrection. The other three of these 
five, to Mary, to the women, and to the two disci- 
ples on their way to Emmaus, we may either suppose 
that he was not informed of, or that, knowing them, 
he passed them by, as happening to persons of com- 
paratively little note and less available for the object 
he had in view. The appearance to above five hun- 
dred at once, we identify with the one on the Gali- 
lean mountain side. There are still two, however, 
of those referred to by the apostle, of which no trace 
is to be found in the gospel narrative — that to James 
and that to himself. The latter could not be alluded 
to in that narrative, which had nothing to do with 
St. Paul’s life and labours ; but the omission of all 
reference to the former is sufficient to convince us 

* See his account of the institution of the Supper, of which 
he says, “ I received of th^ Lord that which also I delivered 
unto you.” 


APPENDIX. 


285 


that it was not the design of the evangelists to 
narrate every incident in their Master’s history ; but 
such only as Divine wisdom directed them to select 
and put on record for the instruction of the Church. 


286 


APPENDIX. 


APPENDIX C.— P. 214. 

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the two 
corporate seals by which the Church signifies and 
authenticates entrance into and continued member- 
ship in her communion. It is mainly by the use of 
these that she preserves an outward and definite 
form as a distinct and separate society. They have 
served age after age to mark her off as a chartered 
corporation, having rules of her own, bonds of union 
of her own, objects of pursuit of her own, which 
distinguish her from all human institutions, proclaim- 
ing her heavenly birth and foretelling her heavenly 
destiny. But these seals are in themselves significant. 
A corporation seal bears generally some emblem or 
motto graven on it descriptive of the character and 
object of the institution. And the seals of the great 
Christian Institute have inscriptions on them rich in 
meaning ; which, interpreted aright, tell us what the 
chief truths are which the Church was appointed to 
guard and propagate, and what the chief ends are 
which she was set apart to realize. There stand out 
pictorially represented here the great leading instru- 
ments put by their divine founder into the Church’s 
hands, and the great leading results which by the use 


APPENDIX. 


287 


of these instruments she is to aim at and realize. 
Both the Christian sacraments are confessedly and 
conspicuously symbolic, that is, in each of them cer- 
tain visible material emblems are used, to represent 
one or more of the great facts and truths of Chris- 
tianity. In conveying his will to us, in seeking to 
impress the truth upon us, God has not confined 
himself to words — to mere verbal representation. 
In the earliest ages, whilst the world was yet in its 
rude infancy, easily affected, and of course easily 
seduced, by what told at once and powerfully on the 
senses, large use was made by the Divine Being of 
signs and symbols. In a picture alphabet no incon- 
siderable portion of the Mosaic revelation was writ- 
ten ; nor has the charm of its picturesque expressive- 
ness expired. Still it is our delight to go back to 
those ancient times, and study those ancient characters. 
Large profit too as well as large pleasure attends the 
task. Who has not felt his faith in Christ grow 
clearer, his devotion to Christ grow deeper, as he 
took his place in thought beside the altar on the 
great day of atonement, and saw the shedding of the 
blood, and the High Priest kindle at the altar fire 
the incense, and felt the power of the solitude and 
the silepce in midst of which the one representative 
of the great Congregation paced with solemn step 
across the space that separated the altar of burnt- 
offering from the tabernacle, entered the sacred 


288 


APPENDIX. 


building, passed by the shewbread table, lifted the 
veil, was hid in the darkness, stood before the ark, 
sprinkled with blood the mercy-seat, and bowed 
before that strangely beautiful and lambent light by 
which the gracious presence of the God of Israel 
was symbolized ? In the Christian dispensation but 
littie use is made of the symbolic method. That 
old scaffolding well nigh removed, the truth as it is 
in Jesus appears in its naked simplicity and grand- 
eur, reposing upon its own firnj. foundations. It is 
but a slight help that it borrows from the senses. It 
addresses itself directly to the understanding, the 
conscience, the heart of man ; of man as he has 
been found in all ages, in all countries, in all condi- 
tions of slavery and freedom, of poverty and riches, 
of barbarism or refinement. Compare the Christi- 
anity of the New Testament with any other religion 
that has had a strong hold upon our race, and we shall 
find that it stands distinguished from them all, by its 
very slender employment of that species of instru- 
mentality which tells upon the senses and the imagi- 
nation. In the original institution, as it came out of 
the hands of its divine founder, there are only in 
fact these two rites, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, 
which partake of that character, and even of them 
we have to say that though taking advantage of our 
susceptibility to be impressed more vividly through 
the eye than through the ear, there is nothing in 


APPENDIX. 


289 


them either to dazzle the rude eye or captivate the 
cultivated imagination. True to her high character, 
Christianity, even in stooping to take up the imple- 
ment by which superstition has led her millions 
captive, takes it up in its very simplest form, and 
uses it, to instruct rather than to dazzle. 

Has the world ever witnessed religious rites which 
had less in them fitted to attract the carnal eye than 
the first baptisms of Christianity, effected with few 
conveniences and. little or no preparation ; or than 
the simple supper in the humble apartment at which 
the twelve sat down to break the bread and to drink 
the wine of an ordinary meal? "We shall presently 
indeed see that what these Christian sacraments 
want of what we may call pictorial power is more 
than made up by the rich, full, spiritual meaning, 
which lies condensed in them. The naked, some 
would even say, the severe simplicity which charac- 
terized them at their first institution, it has been 
attempted to cover over and supplement ; and in 
course of ages what a mass of superadded drapery 
has been gathered round them ! Look at High Mass 
as celebrated in a Roman Catholic cathedral — the 
mitred bishop robed in richest embroidered silks, the 
varied yet still gorgeous dresses of the priesthood 
marshalled round him, the evolutions without end, 
the marchings, the bowings, the crossings, the chant- 
ings — the dumb yet brilliant show all going on within 
13 


Resurrection. 


290 


APPENDIX. 


the railed enclosure, without one thing addressed, 
except through the eye, to the multitude without, — 
look and wonder that ever such a vast ornate super- 
structure could have been raised upon that incident 
which occurred eighteen hundred years ago in an 
upper chamber at Jerusalem. 

Before, however, we proceed to read off the true 
symbolic meaning of the Sacraments, let us notice 
that there is still another service beyond that of 
throwing a fresh attractiveness over them, which the 
enshrining of spiritual truths in outward and sensi- 
ble signs effects. Truths treated in this way exist, 
not only in a more expressive, but in a more enduring 
form than it left to be transmitted either by written 
record, or by oral tradition. They are better pro- 
tected from the influence of time and change. They 
have greater tenacity of life, as is witnessed in the 
descent of many a picturesque old custom or habit 
from times as to which history and even tradition is 
silent. What, then, were those truths of his religion 
which Christ selected out of all the rest, to confer 
upon them the exclusive privilege of being clothed 
with the symbolic vest and covered with the symbo- 
lic shield ? In selecting them, would He not fix on 
those whose superior importance entitled them to 
that distinction ? In making and fashioning the 
outward frames within which these truths were to 
be permanently enshrined, would not those be 


APPENDIX. 


291 


adopted which, of themselves and with least aid 
from an interpreter, spoke out their own meaning ; 
for, if destitute of such a natural language of their 
own, they could but ill fulfil the object of their 
employment ? Let us contemplate, then, for a few 
moments, these two sacraments of Christianity, and 
study their symbolic meaning — suffering them, with- 
out let or hindrance, to tell that meaning of them- 
selves, and not imposing on them any preconceived 
meaning of our own. Dealt with in this way, the 
first thoughtful glance that we cast upon these sacra- 
ments satisfies us that we have here certain significant 
actions, as well as certain significant elements. It is 
not the bringing out of a basin of water, and the 
sprinkling or pouring out of that water anywhere or 
anyhow which constitutes Baptism ; it is the applica- 
tion of that water in one way or other to a human 
body. It is not the bringing forth of bread and 
wine, and laying them upon the communion table ; 
it is not even the breaking of that bread, or the 
pouring out of that cup which constitutes the Lord’s 
Supper. All of us would at once feel that, if the 
officiating minister were to stop there, the main and 
essential part of the communion service would re- 
main unperformed. What is done, then, with the 
material emblem or element is of still greater import- 
ance — is still more significant than the material 
emblem or element itself; nay, more, it is out of 


292 


APPENDIX. 


these symbolic actions that the true, full, distinctive 
meaning of the two sacraments, regarded as symbolic 
exhibitions of divine truth, — the light in which at 
the moment we are alone regarding them, — is to be 
drawn. You apply water to a human body to wash 
it ; and when, in admitting a new member to the 
outward and visible communion of the Church, you 
apply water to his body and so baptize him, this 
surely typifies not any or every washing away of 
inward spiritual defilement, but that particular cleans- 
ing of the human spirit from the guilt of sin which 
takes effect when true entrance is made into the 
spiritual kingdom of our Lord — the baptismal pas- 
sage into the visible society, being meant to shadow 
out that great change effected, or rather that great 
privilege bestowed, when, on passing into the in- 
visible society, the true Church of God, we have 
redemption through the blood of Christ, even the 
remission of sins, and rise to the new life of the 
redeemed, forgiven, accepted in the Lord. Baptism 
is the outward sign and token of that first act or 
stage in the spiritual life which, as it can be but once 
described at the period of the new birth or regenera- 
tion of the soul, so baptism is but once administered, 
and that when the outward tie or link with the visi- 
ble communion of the saints is first formed. 


Let us turn now to the ordinance of the Lord’s 


APPENDIX. 


293 


Supper. Bread is broken ; wine is poured out ; and 
by a company assembled round a common table, that 
bread is eaten, that wine is drunk. The mere figura- 
tive showing forth the Lord’s death as a sacrifice for 
sin is not and cannot be all that is meant to be sym- 
bolically represented here. Had that been all that 
w r as intended, the emblems or elements used would 
not have been peculiarly appropriate or expressive. 
Putting aside for the moment the explanatory words 
of institution, and looking simply at the rite itself, 
and letting it, as we have said, speak out to us its 
own meaning, who, from the mere spectacle of a 
company sitting down and eating bread and drinking 
wine together, could have gathered that the final 
terminating object thereof was to symbolize the sad 
and awful tragedy of the crucifixion ? Even if the 
rite had been restricted to the breaking of a piece of 
bread and the pouring out of a cup of wine, it 
would have been but an inapt emblem of a death 
such as that of Christ upon the cross. Long usage 
has indeed connected together — rightly and properly 
connected together — the ideas of the breaking of the 
bread with the breaking of his body, the pouring 
out of the wine with the shedding of his blood. 
Surely, however, there is no original or natural 
fitness which bread and wine possess to represent a 
scene of suffering and death. The Jew had a much 
more lively figure of the death of Christ before his 


294 


APPENDIX. 


eye in the slaying of an animal than the Christian 
has in this sacrament, if the ultimate intention here 
had been to show forth that death simply as a sacri- 
fice for sin. But it is the Lord’s' death, not in its 
incidents of suffering, not in its general sacrificial 
character, but as becoming, when believingly con- 
templated, the food, the inward source and support 
of that spiritual life to which, in Christ Jesus, we 
are begotten, that is here exhibited. In this sacred 
ordinance — the doctrine of the cross, the doctrine 
that the Son of God died in our room and stead, and, 
by his death, has won for us life eternal — appears 
not in its bare abstract form as a truth to be analysed 
and demonstrated and defended. Ho ; but in that 
far more important and practical light, of its yield- 
ing nourishment, refreshment, and strength to all 
who truly and heartily receive it into believing 
hearts. The bread and wine of this ordinance of 
the Supper, as part of their symbolio office, point us 
to the great death accomplished at Jerusalem, — an 
office which one can easily conceive other emblems 
might have served still more efficiently to execute ; 
but beyond this they serve as no other emblems that 
we can think of could so well have done, to hold out 
that death of Jesus as doing for the spiritual life of 
the soul what these elements themselves do for the 
natural life of the body. As we look upon this use 
of them as laid upon the communion-table to be par- 


APPENDIX. 


295 


taken of by all seated there, their silent language is, 
“ Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and 
drink his blood, ye have no life in you.” “ I am the 
bread of life ; he that eateth my flesh and drinketh 
my blood hath eternal life. My flesh is meat indeed, 
and my blood is drink indeed.” 

It is only when the idea is clearly apprehended and 
vividly realized, that it is not divine truth in itself, 
but that truth in its application and effects, as instru- 
mental in originating and sustaining spiritual life, that 
the difference between the two sacraments comes 
clearly out to view. The water of baptism, no less 
than the bread and wine of the communion, speaks 
of the shedding and sprinkling of that blood without 
which there is no remission ; but the one ordinance 
being meant to be significant of the divine life within 
the soul at its commencement, points to that blood as 
then made available for the removal of bygone guilt ; 
the other ordinance, being meant to be significant of 
the divine life in its continuance and advance, points 
to the doctrine of the cross as made available all 
through life for the believer’s spiritual nourishment 
and growth in grace. When you resolve, then, these, 
the sacraments of our religion, into naked and bare 
signs of certain facts and truths about the death of 
Christ, which any man, or at least all men who have 
historic faith in Christianity might unite in using, 
you take out of them the very heart and soul of their 


296 


APPENDIX. 


significance ; you let them open their lips, but before 
they have yet told half their meaning, you stifle their 
voice, and strike them dumb. Still, however, whether 
listened to or not, whether permitted to pour their 
meaning into open ears, or have their utterance ham- 
pered and choked throughout all the bygone ages of 
the Church, throughout all that strange fluctuation 
of human opinion as to the words of the written 
testimony — these two sacraments of the Church have 
stood bearing their silent testimony to the double 
object of Messiah’s death, — that our guilt should be 
washed away, and that afterwards there should be 
sustained, advanced, invigorated, and perfected the 
life of faith, and love, and dutiful obedience. 

With these remarks on the general significance of 
the two sacraments of the Christian Church, and their 
connexion with each other, let us look a little more 
particularly at the ordinance of baptism. And, in 
the first instance, let us sum up the information, not 
very voluminous, given regarding it in the New Tes- 
tament Scriptures. In the course of our Lord’s min- 
istry, his disciples, we are told, made and baptized 
more disciples than John; but Jesus himself baptized 
not. He permitted his disciples to practice a rite 
which, as performed by them, had the same incom- 
pleteness and imperfection as that practiced by the 
Baptist. It was not till after the resurrection that 


APPENDIX. 


297 


our Lord instituted what is properly to be regarded 
as Christian baptism. 

On the day of Pentecost the excited multitude 
said to Peter and the rest, “ Men and brethren, what 
shall we do ? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, 
and be baptized every one of you in the name of 
Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall 
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise 
is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are 
afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall 
call. Then they that gladly receive his word were 
baptized : and the same day there were added unto 
them about three thousand souls.” During the per- 
secution against the church at Jerusalem, which arose 
after the martyrdom of Stephen, they that were scat- 
tered abroad went everywhere preaching the word. 
Then Philip w T ent down to Samaria, and the people 
with one accord giving heed to the things that were 
spoken by Philip, and expressing with all appearance 
of sincerity their belief, they were baptized, both 
men and women, and among the rest Simon the 
sorcerer, who soon afterwards gave but too patent 
proof that with all his professions, his heart was not 
right in the sight of God. The evangelist Philip 
was commissioned soon afterwards on the lonely road 
which led from Jerusalem to Gaza to join himself to 
the Ethiopian treasurer cf Queen Candace. He sat 
with him in his chariot, and as they drove along 

13 * 


298 


APPENDIX. 


/ 


expounded to him the . chapter of Isaiah which he 
happened to he reading. The Ethiopian, as he heard 
believed, and so eager was he to be enrolled in the 
new community of Christians, that seeing some pool 
or stream of water by the way, he said to Philip, 
“ See, here is water ; what doth hinder me to be 
baptized ? And Philip said, If thou believest with 
all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and 
said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. 
And he commanded the chariot to stand still, and 
they went down both into the water, both Philip and 
the eunuch ; and he baptized him.” 

After his conversion Saul was three days without 
sight at Damascus ; a vision then appeared to a cer- 
tain disciple named Ananias, instructing him to go 
and lay his hands on Saul that he might receive his 
sight. Nothing is told as to who or what this Ana- 
nias was ; we know only that he was not one of the 
twelve ; nor was he a presbyter or elder, for no one 
had as yet been appointed to that office. In the vision 
which appeared nothing was said to him about doing 
anything more than laying his hands upon Saul that 
he might receive his sight ; nevertheless, so soon as 
Saul received his sight, he arose and was baptized by 
Ananias. 

When Peter went down to Cesarea and addressed 
the company assembled in the house of Cornelius, 
the Holy Ghost fell on them that heard his word, con- 


APPENDIX. 


299 


ferring some of the gifts bestowed on the day of 
Pentecost, for they heard them speak with tongues, 
and magnify God ; and when Peter saw that, he said, 
Can any man forbid water, that these should not be 
baptized ? and he commanded them to be baptized, 
not administering the rite himself, but committing 
the administration to the disciples w T ho had accompa- 
nied him from Joppa. At Philippi, the heart of Lydia 
was opened, and not only was she baptized, but her 
household. At Philippi, the jailer -was roused by 
the midnight alarm ; arrested in his meditated act 
of suicide, called for a light, came trembling into the 
prison, then had the glad tidings proclaimed, Believe 
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, 
and thy house ; and be called out all his household, 
and they too heard and believed, and straightway 
upon the spot he and all his w r ere baptized. On the 
occasion of Paul’s first visit to Corinth, Crispus, the 
chief ruler of the synagogue, and many of the Corin- 
thians, hearing, believed, and were baptized. Very 
few of these baptisms were performed by Paul him- 
self; he acted as Peter did at Cesarea, — he committed 
that duty to Silas or Timothy, or some of those who 
were with him. So little impression had the mere 
act of baptism made upon Paul’s mind, that a few 
years afterwards, writing to the Corinthians, the 
apostle said, “ I thank God that I baptized none of 
you, but Crispus and Gaius. And I baptized also 


300 


APPENDIX. 


the household of Stephanas : besides, I know not 
whether I baptized any other. For Christ sent me 
not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.” 

At Ephesus, Paul met with certain disciples who, 
though they had been baptized unto John’s baptism, 
had neither received the Holy Ghost, nor heard of 
the Pentecostal effusion. Under the apostle’s direc- 
tion these were rebaptized in the name of the Lord 
Jesus, — a sufficient proof that the two baptisms were 
different ordinances, the one temporary, the other 
perpetual ; the one preparatory, the other final. 

Such is the amount of the information contained 
in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles. 

In the Epistles the only allusions to the ordinance 
are the following : — “ Know ye not, that so many of 
us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized 
into his death ? Therefore we are buried with him 
by baptism into death ; that like as Christ was raised 
up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so 
we also should walk in newness of life. For if we 
have been planted together in the likeness of his 
death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrec- 
tion.” — (Romans vi. 3, 4, 5.) “ For by one Spirit 

are we all baptized into one body, whether we be 
Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free ; and 
have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” — (1 Cor. 
xii. 13.) “For as many of you as have been bap- 
tized into Christ have put on Christ.” — (Gal. iii. 27.) 


APPENDIX. 


301 


“ One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” — (Eph. iv. 5.) 
“ In whom also ye are circumcised with the circum- 
cision made without hands, in putting off the body 
of the sins of the flesh' by the circumcision of Christ : 
buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are 
risen with him through the faith of the operation of 
God, who hath raised him from the dead.” — (Col. ii. 
11, 12.) “The like figure whereunto even baptism 
filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience 
doth also now save us, (not the putting away of the 
toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” 
— (1 Peter iii. 21.) These and an obscure passage in 
the 15th chapter of First Corinthians about being 
baptized for the dead, embrace all the notices of this 
ordinance in the New Testament from which any thing 
can be gathered as to its nature and significance. 

With these statements of the New Testament 
before us, what then are the conclusions to which we 
are naturally conducted ? 

1. As to the persons by whom this ordinance is 
to be administered. In front of the facts that Christ 
himself never baptized ; that the apostles are seldom 
related to have done so ; that Philip, who so largely 
engaged in the service in Samaria, held only the 
appointment of a deacon, the official duties of which 
position in the Church had reference to the charge of 
the contributions of the Church ; that Ananias is not 
known to have held any office ; and that the brethren 


302 


APPENDIX. 


who accompanied Peter, and by whom the first Gen- 
tile converts at Cesarea were baptized, were private 
members of the Church : with these plain facts be- 
fore us, we cannot surely attach exclusively the right 
and privilege of administering baptism to any order 
or class of office-bearers in the Church. Wherever 
the Church has had time and opportunity to mature 
and reduce to fixed and orderly arrangement her 
methods of worship and government, it is not only a 
legitimate but a useful and becoming thing that this 
ordinance of baptism should be administered by those 
set apart to the office of the ministry ; but that no 
other baptism than that so celebrated is a valid one, 
following the light which the history of apostolic 
times affords us, we cannot say. Should a sudden 
and dangerous illness seize either an infant or an 
unbaptized adult w r ho had a strong desire* and was 
in all respects a suitable subject for the rite, should 
no clergyman be at hand, and in prospect of speedy 
dissolution, should a private Christian do for the 
dying child or the dying adult what Peter’s attend- 
ants did for the household of Cesarea, who would be 
prepared to say that that was not a good and valid 
baptism ? 

2. Again, as to the time and mode and place of 
baptism, so great a variety of practice is presented 
to us in the sacred narrative as to leave us at perfect 
liberty to follow whatever course in these respects, 


APPENDIX. 


303 


consulting for the order and general good of the 
Church, may suggest itself as the most appropriate. 
We can scarcely doubt that at least partial immer- 
sion was at first the general practice. Jesus and the 
Baptist, Philip and the Eunuch went down into the 
water and came up out of it, — processes of descent 
and emergence which the apostle employs in two of 
the passages already quoted as illustrative of the be- 
liever’s death to sin and life to righteousness, the 
burial with Christ, the rising again together with 
him. John baptized at iEnon, near to Salim, because 
there was much water there, — a reason which 
would not have been a valid one had our present 
practice of sprinkling been followed by the Baptist. 
On the other hand, it is inconceivable that the 3000 
who were baptized on the day of Pentecost could 
have each gone through the same ceremonial with 
our Lord himself or with those who w T ere baptized 
by John in the Jordan. And it is perhaps still less 
conceivable that within the precincts of the prison- 
house at Philippi any means of immersion should 
have been available for that hasty and midnight 
baptism. 

Nor is any likeness or uniformity of time, or place, 
or circumstance observed. Now you have it in the 
house, now by the river, now bn the road-side. Here 
to thousands, there to families, again to individuals ; 
now it is in an assembly where spectators are looking 


304 


APPENDIX. 


on ; now it is when none are present but the baptizer 
and the baptised ; by night, by day ; in public and 
in private ; in all kinds of ways, by all kinds of per- 
sons, in all kind of places, were those first baptisms 
of the Christian Church conducted. A sublime sim- 
plicity of ritual observance here, which overlooks the 
outward mode, and concerns itself alone with the 
reality and significance of the rite ! 

3. We touch, however, a more difficult question 
when we ask, Who are the persons to whom, accord- 
ing to the original character and design of the ordi- 
nance, and in accordance with the original practice 
of the Church, this ordinance should be administered ? 
On the very face of the narrative it appears that 
baptism was the initiating rite by which members 
were to be admitted into the Christian society. Al- 
most all societies which are organized with any degree 
of completeness and have any great and definite 
objects to realize, have some established mode of 
admission ; and as it was natural that this spiritual 
society, the Church, should have such a door of 
entrance, it pleased its Divine founder to appoint 
baptism to be that door. At first, and when the 
society was in process of formation, gathering its 
members out of the Jewish and heathen communities, 
in the midst of which it had its birth, it was obvi- 
ously required of those admitted by that door that 
they should make a credible profession of their faith 


APPENDIX. 


305 


in Christ ; such faith constituting the essential ele- 
ment of that character to be possessed and exhibited 
by all true members of the Church. Baptism was to 
be administered, therefore, — could only with a mean- 
ing and purpose be administered, to adults who made 
such profession. But w T hat exactly did baptism do 
for them ? what spiritual benefit did it confer ? was 
there any grace or gift of the Holy Spirit attached 
necessarily and invariably to this w T ay of admitting 
new members into connexion with the visible Church ? 
It is to such baptisms as these, the baptisms of adults 
of the first converts to Christianity, that the passages 
I have already quoted from the New Testament par- 
ticularly apply. It is in such baptisms as these that 
the full virtue or efficacy, whatever we may conceive 
that to be, which the rite possesses, was realized. 
How are there not, it may be asked, such strong 
expressions used regarding it in the New Testament 
as to forbid the idea that it w r as nothing more than 
the outward and visible sign of membership attached 
to those received into the Christian fellowship ? Is 
it not said, that it is he that belie veth and is baptized 
who shall be saved ? is it not said, that we must be 
born of -water and of the Spirit before we can enter 
the kingdom ? Is not the water of this baptism 
spoken of as the washing of regeneration ? Now, in 
answer to such questions as these, we have two 
remarks to offer : — 


306 


APPEJSDIX. 


1st. Whatever spiritual benefit may, in the instances 
we have now before us, have been conveyed by bap- 
tism, it could not have been that described in Scrip- 
ture as the regeneration or new birth of the soul ; 
for, in every case in which the baptism was rightly 
celebrated, that change had been effected before this 
baptism took place. Repentance towards God and 
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the realizing of 
which within the soul its regeneration takes place — 
these were to precede the baptism. Unless we are 
prepared to say, that baptism was itself the instru- 
ment of conversion — that those who beforehand had 
not been true believers were made so in and by that 
washing with water — we must repudiate the idea of 
regenerating grace accompanying the ordinance. 

2d. The language employed regarding baptism 
appears to us to be perfectly warranted — to have a 
natural and sufficient meaning attached to it, though 
we regard baptism simply as the external bond by 
which membership in the Church was symbolized. 
We are called upon, not only individually to believe, 
but to confess that faith before men, and to do so by 
connecting ourselves with others of a like mind and 
a like heart. In these circumstances it comes as fitly 
and appropriately to be said, He that believeth and 
professes openly his faith, as that, He that believeth 
and is baptized, shall be saved. No one, however, 
would put a mere profession of faith in the same 


APPENDIX. 


307 


category with the faith itself ; no one would regard 
the profession as occupying the same place or stand- 
ing in the same relation to the salvation that the faith 
does ; no one would say that the profession was as 
vitally, essentially, necessarily connected with the sal- 
vation as the faith was. It might happen that the 
circumstances should be such that no time or oppor- 
tunity of professing was given. In such a case the 
faith alone, without the profession, would surely be 
enough. Now the being baptized is but a more 
striking, more solemn, more formal way of making 
that profession. We should not, then, confound the 
faith and the baptism any more than we should con- 
found the faith and the confession ; nor are we 
obliged, nor are we warranted by any phraseology, 
however strong, en^loyed in Scripture, to represent 
the one as having any more vital or essential connex- 
ion with the salvation than the other has. And here, 
too, it might happen — and in those apostolic times 
we know it did happen — that when there was genu- 
ine faith, there might be no fit time or opportunity 
for being baptized, as was the case with the thief on 
the cross. We surely could not say that the faith 
failed in its great object because of the absence of 
its appropriate external sign ? Taking baptism again 
as the outw r ard sign and seal that the person on whom 
it was affixed had made the great spiritual transition 
from death to life, from unbelief to faith, had passed 


308 


APPENDIX. 


out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of 
God’s dear Son, we hut proceed according to the 
ordinary usages of language, by which the sign and 
the thing signified are often identified, the expressions 
denoting each interchanged with the other, when we 
say of every true believer, that he was buried by 
that baptism into Christ’s death, and rose out of that 
baptism into newness of life, without belieA r ing that 
the baptism was either the efficient cause, or the 
divinely constituted instrument by which that great 
inward spiritual result was wrought out in the soul. 
It is in such a sense as that, and in no other, that we 
conceive of baptism as having to do wffth the regen- 
eration or renewal of the soul by the Holy Ghost. 
We regard it in fact as nothing more than the 
Church’s corporate seal, by which, in obedience to 
Divine command, she authenticates the admission of 
members into her communion, by that visible signa- 
ture conferring on them a title to a participation in 
all her outward privileges. The use of such seal is 
of great importance ; it gives visibility and definite- 
ness to the Church as a chartered corporation ; it 
marks it out age after age as a spiritual society separ- 
ate from the world, having principles of life, bonds 
of union, objects of pursuit which are all her own — 
a kingdom among this world’s kingdoms, yet owning 
a higher birth, and aiming at a higher destiny. And 
to him upon whom that admission token is impressed, 


APPENDIX. 


309 


and who is truly that which this token describes, one 
washed from his sins in the layer of regeneration, 
baptism is an entrance within a hallowed circle of 
new influences, new relationships, new companion- 
ships, into a region where a clearer light shineth, and 
a purer, heavenlier air is breathed. 

We can detect no mystic, occult spiritual power 
and energy belonging by divine appointment to this 
initiatory rite of Christianity ; we can point to no 
single separate spiritual benefit which here and here 
only is conveyed ; we can describe no inward spirit- 
ual change which by this instrument, and by it ex- 
clusively, is realized. Were baptism what so many 
affirm and believe it to be, the divinely appointed 
channel along which the regenerating grace of the 
Spirit specially, if not exclusively, descends, how 
could St. Paul have spoken of it thus ? — “ I thank 
God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and 
Gaius ; lest any should say that I baptized in mine 
own name. And I baptized also the household of 
Stephanas : besides, I know not whether I baptized 
any other. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to 
preach the gospel.”* If baptism were a regenerat- 
ing rite, how could Paul have been so thankful that 
he had baptized or regenerated so few ? Was it not 
sorrow rather than joy, regret rather than tkankful- 


* 1 Cor. i. 14-17. 


310 


APPENDIX. 


ness, that the retrospect should have awakened in his 
breast ? In one sense it was not true that Christ 
had not sent the Apostle to baptize. He was acting 
under the great commission which enjoined the ob- 
servance of this rite; but just because of the place 
given to baptism in that commission, all the more 
emphatic is the testimony here borne by St. Paul to 
its secondary character, its comparative unimportance. 
So inferior, so subordinate a thing did baptizing, as 
compared with the preaching of the gospel, appear 
in his eyes, that it had no glory by reason of the 
glory that was more excellent, and therefore he could 
say, “ Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach 
the gospel.” But is it to be said that we degrade 
this rite, or strip it of all high significance, when we 
look upon it as that sacred bond which binds each 
member of the mystical body of the Son of God to 
that great spiritual commonwealth, founded on divine 
promises, guarded by divine power, endowed with 
divine energies, invested with divine privileges — that 
Zion of God, of which such glorious things have 
been spoken, to which pertain the adoption, and the 
glory, and the giving of the gospel and the service 
of God, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit ? 

Why, then, do we baptize infants? No express 
mention is made of infants in the command of Christ 
which instituted this rite ; no distinct case of the 


APPENDIX. 


311 


baptism of infants is mentioned in the sacred narra- 
tive. Are we not acting, then, without a divine war- 
rant ? are we not contradicting the inherent nature 
and design of this ordinance when infants are bap- 
tized by us ? If it be true, as we are distinctly 
taught it is, that in the spiritual commonwealth of 
the Church baptism takes that place which in the 
Jewish commonwealth was occupied by circumcision, 
each being the initiatory or admission rite of the so- 
ciety, then it will at once appear that there is scarcely 
an objection to the baptism of infants which might 
not with equal weight be urged against the circum- 
cision of infants. In the earliest period of Judaism 
the adult Abraham received circumcision, a sign and 
seal of the righteousness of faith which he had when 
yet uncircumcised, just as in the earliest ages of the 
Church the adult Christian received baptism, a sign 
and seal of that faith which he had being yet unbap- 
tized. Afterwards the children of those originally 
circumcised as adults were to be circumcised in 
infancy ; yet Paul testifies to every man that is cir- 
cumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law. 
Now, might it not with as much reason have been 
asked, How can an infant take on it that obligation 
to obey the law of Moses, as, How can an infant 
make profession of faith in Christ ? The Covenant 
of the Law was established with the Jewish people 
and their children after them, and so the sign and 


312 


APPENDIX. 


seal ofi that covenant which undoubtedly in its full 
express signification could be verified only on an 
adult, came, nevertheless, to be impressed on an 
infant, God dealing with the Jews in this covenant 
not merely as separate individuals, but as families. 
Shall we believe it of that new and better covenant 
which was established upon better promises, that it 
was narrower in its spirit, more limited in its reach ? 
Could that multitude whom Peter addressed on the 
day of Pentecost, whom he urged to come forward 
to be baptized on the very ground that the promise 
was to them and to their children, well believe that 
the baptism thus offered to them was yet to be denied 
to their little ones ? Once that it was perceived that 
the new rite of baptism took the place of the old rite 
of circumcision, would not the universal Jewish in- 
stinct prompt the practice of having their infants 
with themselves baptized ? And even among the 
Gentile converts, would not the universal parental 
instinct act in the same way ? Were the Corinthians 
taught by Paul that the faith of one parent made 
even the children of that family holy, and was that 
outward holiness to be deprived of its appropriate 
symbol? Were those, of whom the early converts 
of Christianity heard that Jesus himself once took 
up one of them into his arms and blessed it, and said, 
Of such is the kingdom of heaven — were they to be 
excluded from all outward and visible connexion with 


APPENDIX. 


313 


that Saviour, and to stand in no nearer relation to 
him than the children of the heathen around ? Placed 
in this view, and looking upon the rite of baptism as 
I believe they did, it is very difficult to believe that 
the first Christians did not claim it for their children, 
or that that claim was refused. True, there is no 
express command to baptize infants as well as adults, 
but neither is there any express command to admit 
females as well as males to the table of the Lord ; if 
it be the absence of such specification in the words 
of institution that is gone upon, women might be 
debarred from the one sacrament as rightfully as 
infants from the other. True, there is no express 
command, but neither is there any express prohibi- 
tion ; and taking the whole circumstances of the case 
into account, it seems to us that a positive prohibition 
would have been far more needed to prevent the 
practice of infant baptism than a positive injunction 
to originate it. True, we have no distinct mention 
of an infant being baptized, but we are to remember 
that at the first and for some time no instance of the 
separate baptism of an infant could occur ; and con- 
sidering the narrow space which the New Testament 
narrative covers, the omission of any reference to 
infant baptism is not remarkable. It is rather re- 
markable, on the other hand, that among the few 
recorded cases the baptism of so many as four Chris- 
tian families should have been recorded, — those of 

Resurrection. 14 


314 


APPE1SDIX. 


Lydia, the Philippian Jailer, Cornelius, and Stepha- 
nas, — in which families there may have been some of 
tender age. We cannot, indeed, prove that there 
were infants in any of these four households. We 
cannot by any clear and certain instance prove that 
infant baptism was an apostolic institute, was the 
general or universal practice of the apostolic age, but 
neither is there any proof on the other side, any evi- 
dence that infants were not then baptized ; and we 
are disposed to think that the burden of the proof 
lies not with those who follow the practice of infant 
baptism, but with those who repudiate it. We have, 
however, one strong fact to urge. About a hundred 
years after the death of Christ, historic traces present 
themselves of infant baptism ; not as an innovation, 
as only partially prevailing, as in many quarters ob- 
jected to, but as the general practice of the Christian 
community. And we know that, from the third cen- 
tury down to the fifteenth, it was the universal cus- 
tom of the Christian Church. Could this well have 
happened, if it had been set up at first in direct oppo- 
sition to the practice of apostolic times ? Still, with 
all these considerations to urge in behalf of infant 
baptism, we would plead for it as a practice which 
the spirit of the divine command, and the genius of 
the Christian institute, allow us to observe, rather ( 
than a custom which the letter of the command 
obliges us to follow. There are those who, as you 


APPENDIX. 


315 


well know, cannot go with us even thus far, and who 
do not feel at liberty, without more express sanction 
than, as it seems, the Word of God contains, to do 
what seems to them to contravene the very nature 
and desire of the ordinance. Of our difference with 
such we shall only say that it never should have been 
magnified into one of such weight and importance, 
that the Church of Christ should have divided there- 
upon into separate communions ; for if the Church of 
the apostles, acting under immediate guidance from 
heaven, was taught to tolerate within its bosom 
diversity both of opinion and practice as to the rite 
of circumcision, we might well have learned to toler- 
ate diversity of opinion and practice as to the rite of 
baptism. 

We cling with fondness, however, to the baptism 
of infants. It seems to us a beautiful and impressive 
spectacle that Christianity should be seen thus bend- 
ing over the cradle and claiming the new-born babe 
for Him who died for sinners, and for that blessed 
and glorious immortality which he hath opened up 
for us beyond the grave. Her presence there, her 
voice of love and hope, how comforting to those into 
whose weak hands the care from birth of a young 
immortal has been committed ! In presenting his 
child for baptism, a Christian parent undertakes a 
weighty responsibility ; that responsibility would rest 


316 


APPENDIX. 


on him the same whether his infant was baptized or 
not ; but a burden, too heavy for his unaided spirit to 
bear, does it not largely help him to bear when he is 
permitted from the very first, and in this sacred rite, 
to commit his offspring to the covenanted mercy of 
God in Christ ? It is as a privilege rather than a 
duty that we would have you bring your infants to 
the baptismal font, grateful to Him who suffers his 
holy name to be named so early, over them, and cast- 
ing this your greatest care on Him who careth for 
you and yours. 


, APPENDIX D. — P. 229. 

It would reduce by one the number of the appear- 
ances, should the theory of Ebrard be admitted, that 
the appearance to Mary Magdalene was not a separate 
one from that to the other women ; but we are not 
prepared to believe this. 


» 


NEW BOOKS. 


Faithful and True . b y the author of “ win 

and Wear,” “ Tony Starr’s Legacy,” etc. 16mo. 8 illus. $1 00 
A well-told story of life on the Green Mountains — full 
of action and interest — fresh, and with an excellent moral 
to it. The main object of the book is to teach the impor- 
tance of being “ faithful and true,” especially in the little 
things of every-day life. ' 

The Safe Compass , and how it 

Points. By the Rev. Richard Newton, D. D. 6 illus. .. 1 00 
Dr. Newton is one of the very best writers of juvenile 
religious literature in the land. He seems to have an in- 
exhaustible fund of unexceptionable stories and illustra- 
tions, and knows just when and how to use them. In this 
volume his design is to assist those who are young in life’s 
iourney to make a right use of the Word of God, the safe 
compass which he has given us as a guide to heaven. — 
Oongregationalist. 

Claude , the Colporteur . b 7 the author of 

“ Mary Powell,” etc. 16mo. 3 engravings 100 

A graphically told story of youthful labors, trials, and 
successes. In a narrative of unflagging interest many 
profitable lessons are inculcated on “ Sowing and Reap- 
ing.” It is a book that will be devoured with eagerness 
by the young reader. 

The Post of Honor . A^tory by the author of 

“ Broad Shadows on Life’s Pathway.” 16mo 100 

A well-told story of missionary life, suffering and tri- 
umph — all founded on fact. 

The Jewish Tabernacle and its Fur- 

niture. By the Rev. Richard Newton, D. D. Illus 1 50 

In reading these pages we find our feet becoming 
strangely familiar with holy ground, and our eyes taking 
in a new significance from altar and candlestick, laver and 
shewbread^ hangings of blue and purple and fine-twined 
linen. 

The Old Helmet. A Tale by the author of “ The 

Wide, Wide World.” 2 vois 2 50 


1 


* 


carters’ books for the young. 


Christian Conquests . a series of stories by 

A. L. O. E. 12 cuts $0 65 

We have here Conquests over Rebellion, Fear, Jeal- 
ousy Unbelief, Self-Righteousness, Avarice, Dishonesty, 
Falsehood, Self-Will, Selfishness and Pride, all illustrated 
by stories in the attractive style of this unrivalled writer. 

Try Again, and other Stories. By A. L. O. E. 12 

engravings 0 65 

A series of very pretty stories on such subjects as Try 
Again, Don’t be too Sufe, Good-bye, Quite in Earnest, A 
White Lie, Hold Fast, Pajdng Dear for it, Beyond all 
Price, How are You, The Look of the Thing, Good-for- 
Nothing, How Like it is, etc. 


The Silver Casket ; or , The Wiles 

of the World. By A. L. O. E. 3 illustrations 0 65 

The story of three young people, whose parents being 
in India, were left to the care of two aunts, the one a 
worldly, godless woman, and the other a loving, living 
Christian. The influence of the two relatives on the 
young people is graphically told. 

Stones of Jewish History. By a. l. o. e. o 45 

This little volume fills up in a most interesting manner 
the space between the histories of the Old and New Tes- 
taments. It makes a very instructive volume. 


The Tags of Golf and other Stories. 

By A. L. O. E. 6 cuts 0 45 


Falsely Accused, and other Stories. 

By A. L. 0. E. 6 cuts 


The Diamond Brooch , and other 

St01 ’ ies o 45 

A collection of stories, well written, illustrating the 
dealings of God’s providence -with those who trust Him 
A most excellent book. 


2 


* 


carters’ books for the toting. 


The Buried Bible , and other Stories. $ 0 45 

A choice book for the young. The stories are good and 
the savor of their morals healthful. 


The Sale of Orummie , and other 

Stories 0 65 

A collection of seventeen brief and capital stories, in- 
cluding a great variety for every taste among boys and 
girls. 

Maud Summers, the Sightless. 4 nius. 0 65 

A touching and beautiful narrative of a blind girl — a 
choice spirit, who endured bravely the discipline that fell 
to her lot, following close in the foosteps of her Master. 

i 

The Three Cripples. By the Rev. p. b. power. 0 55 

A Tale of three poor orphan children in London, ex- 
hibiting with painful minuteness the sufferings to which 
poverty and the love of drink sometimes lead. The 
story has its bright side also, and is full of hope for the 
wretched and the sorrowing. It is specially good as a 
temperance book. 

The Bast Shilling . By the Rev; P. B. Power. 0 55 

This story, founded on fact, shows the sad results flow- 
ing from the sin of selfishness. Though intended for the 
young, its lessons may prove profitable to many older 
readers. There is appended to the volume a short story 
called “The Oiled Feather,” which show’s how much 
pleasanter it is for a man’s family and neighbors, and for 
himself, when he is genial and kind. 

The Two Brothers and the Two Paths. 

By the Rev. P. B. Power 0 55 

An admirable story for boys, illustrating the wise man’s 
words, “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; 
but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.” The two 
brothers are Ralph and Charles; the former of whom 
commences a downward course, (which ends with trans- 
portation,) by visiting the theatre. Charles becomes an 
apprentice, where his exhibition of Christian principle 
was the admiration of all who knew him. 


3 


carters’ books for the youkg. 


Esther Parsons / and other Stories. 


Paying Pear for It. b 7 a. l. o. e 

Mabel's Experience ; or , Seeking and 

Finding 

A capital story, ths scene of which is laid in the Scot- 
tish Highlands. Mabel went through some painful expe- 
riences, but at last found the pearl of great price. 


0 45 
0 45 


0 65 


Eels Motto ; or, Little by Little. By 

the Author of “Faithful and True,” “Win and Wear,” and 

“Tony Starr’s Legacy.” 16mo 1 00 

This story, like the others by the same author, is an 
admirable one. It is highly entertaining and yet very 
instructive, showing in the experience of every day life 
how much can be done if taking “ Little by Little. 


Annie Price. 045 

Lost Spectacles 0 45 

Grandmamma's Sunshine, and other 

Stories. By the Author of “ Kitty’s Victory,” “ Cosmo’s 
Visit to his Grandparents.” ISmo 0 65 


1 he Rival Kings / or, Overbearing. 

By the Author of “Sidney Grey,” “Mia and Charlie,” 


etc. 18mo. Six fine Illustrations .* o 65 

Pertie Lee. 18mo. 4 engravings 0 55 

Ministering Children. New Edition. 2 vois. 1 30 
1 he lorn Bible, ismo 0 65 


long Starr's Legacy. 

and Wear,” 


By tho Author of “ Win 
0 65 


4 



FIRST SERIES.— 65 Cents each. 


By A. L. 0. R 


The Claremont Tales. 

The Adopted Son. 

The Young Pilgrim. 
Giant-Killer, and Sequel. 
Flora; or, Self-Deception. 
The Needle and the Eat. 
Eddie Ellerslie, and the Mine 
Precepts in Practice. 

The Christian’s Mirror. 

Idols in the Heart. 

Pride and His Prisoners. 

The Poacher. 


The Chief’s Daughter. 
Shepherd of Bethlehem. 
The Lost Jewel. 

Stories on the Parables. 
Ned Man ton. 

War and Peace. 

The Eobber’s Cave. 

The Crown of Success. 
Eebel Eeclaimed. 

The Silver Casket. 
Christian Conquests. 
Try Again. 


Anna ; or. Passages from the Life of a Daughter at Home. 
Aunt Edith ; or, Love to God the Best Motive. 

Mabel Grant : a Highland Story. 

Memoir of Captain W. T. Bate of the Royal Navy. 

St. Augustine. By the Rev. John Bailed. 

The Black Ship : with other Allegories and Parables. 
Blind Lilias. With Introd. by Rev. C. B. Tayler. 

Blind Man’s Holiday ; or, Short Tales for the Nursery. 
Blossoms of Childhood. 

The Indian Tribes of Guiana. By Brett. 

Broad Shadows on Life’s Pathway. 

The Brother and Sister ; or, the Way of Peace. 

The Brother’s Watchword. 

The Pilgrim’s Progress. By John Bunyan. 

Clara Stanley ; or, A Summer among the Hills. 

Little Crowns and How to Win Them. By Collier. 

The Cottage and It3 Visitor. 


5 


f 


carters’ books for the young. 


Day-Break ; or, Right Struggling and Triumphant. 

Days at Muirhead ; or, Little Olive’s Holidays. 

Days of Old : Three Stories from Old English History. 
Emily Yernon. By Mrs. Drummond. 

Children of the Manse. By Mrs. Duncan. 

Tales of the Scottish Peasantry. 

Edward Clifford ; or, Memories of Childhood. 

Ellie Randolph ; or, The Good Part. 

Fanny Aiken : A Story for Girls. 

Far Off ; or, Asia and Australia Described. 

Florence Egerton ; or, Sunshine and Shadow. 

Vesper: A Series of Tales. By the Countess de Gasparin. 
Alice and Adolphus. By Mrs. Gatty. 

Aunt Judy’s Tales. “ “ 

Parables from Nature. “ “ 

May Dundas ; or, Passages from Young Life. 

Grandma’s Sunshine : A Series of Stories. 

The Happy Home. By the Rev. J. Hamilton, D. D. 
Memoir of Lady Colquhoun. By Dr. Hamilton. 

Haste to the Rescue. By Mrs. Wightman. 

Life of General Havelock. By Brock. 

The Infant’s Progress. By Mrs. Sherwood. 

Jamie Gordon ; or, The Orphan. 

Jeanie Morrison; or, the Discipline of Life. 

The Earnest Christian ; a Memoir of Mrs. Jukes. 

Kate Kilborn , or. Sowing and Reaping. 

Kate and Effie ; or, Prevarication. 

Kitty’s Victory, and Other Stories. 

Life of Richard Knill of St. Petersburg. 

The Lighted Valley. — Memoir of Abby Bolton. 

Little Lychetts. By the Author of “ John Halifax.” 
Louis and Frank. 

The Family at Heatherdale. By Mrs. Mackay. 

Mabel’s Experience ; or, Seeking and Finding. 


6 


: 

carters’ books for the young. 

Margaret Warner ; or, The Young Wife at the Farm. 

Maud Summers the Sightless. 

The Convent. By Mrs. McCrindell. 

Mia and Charlie ; or, A Holiday at Rydale Rectory. 
Ministering Children*, a Tale. 2 vols. 18 Engravings. 
School-Days and Companions. 

Near Home ; or. The Countries of Europe Described. 

Best Things. By the Rev. Richard Newton, D. D. 

King’s Highway. By Rev. Dr. Newton. 

The World of Waters. By Mrs. Osborne. 

Passing Clouds ; or, Love Conquering Evil. 

Tales of the Covenanters. By Pollok. 

The Rival Kings. By the Author of “ Sidney Grey.” 
Round the Fire : a Series of Stories. 

Ruth and Her Friends : a Story for Girls. 

The Sale of Crummie : a Scotch Story. 

Sydney Grey : a Tale of School Life. 

Olive Leaves. By Mrs. Sigourney. 

Letters to my Pupils. “ 

Water-Drops. “ 

Holiday House : a Series of Tales. By Sinclair. 
Roughing It with Alick Baillie. By Stewart. 

Tales of English History. 

Tales of Sweden and the Norsemen. 

Tales of Travellers. By Maria Hack. 

The Contributions of Q. Q. By Jane Taylor. 

Tony Starr’s Legacy; or, Faith in a Covenant God. 

The Torn Bible. 

Abbeokuta ; or. Sunrise in the Tropics. By Tucker. 

The Rainbow in the North. 

Southern Cross and Southern Crown. 

Warfare and Work; or, Life’s Progress. 

The Way Home. 

The Week. By author of “ Commandment with Promise.” 
Willie and Unica. 

Jj 









carters’ books for the young. 


Life of William Wilberforce. 

Wilson’s Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life. 
Win and Wear : a Story for Boys. 

Woodcutter of Lebanon and Exiles of Lucerna. 


SECOND SERIES.— 55 Cents each. 

Africa’s Mountain Valley. 

Ashton Cottage ; or, The True Faith : a Tale. 

Life Studies. By Rev. John Baillie. 

Bertie Lee ; or, A Father’s Prayers Answered. 

Brook Farm ; or, American Country Life. 

Charles Roussell ; or, Industry and Honesty. 

The Children on the Plains. By Aunt Friendly. 

( The Commandment with Promise : a Story. 

Cosmo’s Visit to His Grandfather. 

The Cottage Fireside. By the Rev. Dr. Duncan. 

First and Last Journey ; the Story of Rhoda Williams. 
Frank Netherton ; or. The Talisman. 

Fritz Harold ; or, The Temptation. 

The Jewish Twins. By Aunt Friendly. 

Johnson’s Rasselas. 

The Last Week. By Davis Johnson, Jr. 

Magdala and Bethany. By the Rev. S. C. Malan. 
Marion’s Sundays ; or. Stories on the Commandments. 
Michael Kemp, the Happy Farmer’s Lad. 

The Mine ; or, Darkness and Light. By A. L. O. E. 
New Cobwebs to Catch Little Flies. 

The Giants and How to Fight Them. By Dr. Newton. 
Opie’s Tales about Lying. 

The Last Shilling. By Rev. P. B. Power. 

The Three Cripples. “ “ 

The Two Brothers. “ M 

Annals of the Poor. By Legh Rjchmond. 


8 







. 


Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: July 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 


1 t r 

y 
















* 
















































' ■ 




































































. 




** 










* 




















* 

















































, 

■ 



* 

> i 





























































































